One Small Kindness
by DigitalTart
Summary: Uchiha Mikoto takes the hand of an outcast child, and with it rewrites the destiny of her clan.  AU.  *SEQUEL UP*
1. Chapter 1

**What this story is about:**  
Essentially, Uchiha Mikoto, a character with about five minutes of screen time, and what would happen if there was a real person under the blank smile and the apron. I realize it may be a tough sell for some, since thirty-five-year-old housewives don't figure prominently in Naruto's core demographic.

However.

If you're the sort of person who enjoys complex characters, cutthroat politics, and female ninjas who do things besides heal people, cry, and stand around being useless and screaming 'Naruto' over and over until you want to punch them...it may be the story for you. I will give you fair warning that this fic (1) has way more talky than fighty, dealing as it does with twisty Uchiha political intrigue rather than blowing stuff up, and (2) our favorite fox boy is a significant supporting character, but _not_ a main character.

* * *

It was nearing the end of Sasuke's first full day at the Academy, and the sun of the fading summer shone down on Mikoto as she strolled leisurely back to the school to walk her son home. She didn't _have_ to do this...she was the Lady Uchiha, and could have delegated the task to her maid, if she'd wished, and no one would have thought it was odd. But Mikoto always felt it was better she complete the mundane tasks of keeping house, in addition to her duties as the wife of the Clan Head. She was expected to be the elegant hostess, the oil that kept the cogs of clan politics running smoothly, conspicuous only in her absence. Doing the dishes, or picking her son up from school, didn't technically fall under this purview, but Mikoto did them anyway. She felt it kept her grounded.

The thought that she was casting for excuses to be near Sasuke fluttered across her mind like a fallen leaf, and disappeared. It had been too quiet in the house today. She thought it would be a relief not to have the curious six-year-old underfoot for a while, but, despite its benign cause, the silence in the large house was unsettling. Taking a long, uninterrupted bath (when was the last time she'd had one of _those?) _turned out only to make it worse. After toweling off, she'd embarked on an epic cleaning mission to the cellars instead, to distract herself from the amorphous loneliness. It had worked, mostly, until she found a box of old photo albums in the back labeled 'Itachi', and had to stop. At first, she'd flipped through them idly, intermittently chuckling to herself at the memories they brought into sharper focus. Then she noticed that past the age of eight he wasn't smiling in a single photograph.

Her eldest son had been promoted to jōnin earlier this year, and ever since the simple ceremony he'd gone from cool to unreachably distant. He was the youngest in Konoha to ever attain that rank, save Hatake Kakashi, who'd beaten the Uchiha prodigy by all of two months. The whole clan was terribly proud of him, his father most of all, but his reaction to the praise had been to flinch from it as if they were words of rebuke. He did his duty, and did it well, but he never seemed to take the same pride in his accomplishments as his family and his peers. If Mikoto didn't know better, she would have thought he was ashamed of his skills. He had always been a reserved child, and, as an active-duty jōnin, she'd expect him to conduct himself with more maturity than was usual for his thirteen years on this earth, but this...this worried her deeply. When he was still a genin, he did have his unguarded moments, with her and especially with a toddling Sasuke, when a peaceful smile could be seen cracking through the hardening shinobi mask, and blossoming on his lips.

After Itachi shut her out of his life, she'd turned to Sasuke, who was as loving a boy as a mother could wish for. He was proud to be an Uchiha, without too much of the arrogance that afflicted so many of their clan—her husband's stern face flashed in her mind's eye—and his childlike determination to become Chief of Police, and beloved protector of Konoha, never failed to lift her heart. Sending him to the Academy was the first step toward his dream.

A tiny part of her, that she shushed without mercy, was afraid it might also be the first step towards making him another Itachi. A boy made a soldier when he was so small she could still balance him on one hip, a killer before his ninth birthday, a hardened assassin by his thirteenth. A child with barely a childhood.

She shook those dark thoughts from her mind as her steps carried her to the scruffy gardens, and training fields, surrounding the Academy. The youngest students, and a few of their parents, were milling around the playground, the older ones wandering home in uneven clumps. From the far side of the lot, she picked out the head of bluish, and perpetually unkempt, hair, and waved. She'd brushed it flat this morning, but, unlike the rest of him, Sasuke's hair could never seem to behave itself.

"Hi, Mom!" he warbled from his perch on the seesaw, where a skinny blond boy was bouncing him up and down with gusto.

She noted, with a sniff of superiority, that the Hyūga had sent some Branch House member to pick up their precious, pearl-eyed princess from her first day of school. Hyūga-sama apparently couldn't be bothered. His late wife had been a sweet woman, if a bit on the timid side. It was a pity none of her loving nature had rubbed off on her husband.

Among her son's other classmates, she recognized a few students from other prominent clans as well: an Aburame in a hooded sweatshirt despite the heat; an Inuzuka, with very sharp teeth and a fang motif imprinted below each eye; a self-assured Yamanaka, with hair so blonde it was almost white; and a Nara and an Akimichi snacking together in the grass, judging from the bottle-brush black ponytail and very round tattooed cheeks, respectively.

She greeted the assistant teacher supervising the playground on her way over, a rather nervous-looking young man with a scar across the bridge of his nose. He didn't look older than mid-teens himself, and Mikoto realized this was probably _his_ first day of school too, albeit on the other side of the lectern. His brown eyes wandered over the pattern of red and white fans adorning the breast of her kimono, and he bowed very deeply.

"Sasuke-kun helped me demonstrate the first taijutsu forms today. I didn't expect him to be so far ahead of the rest of his class with those, Uchiha-sama," he said, opened his mouth, and then shut it again very quickly. "I mean, of course he's very skilled," he added, and cleared his throat anxiously. "I just didn't know how skilled. Just like Itachi-san, I've been told. Amazing, really."

Mikoto politely stifled a chuckle at his obvious discomfort. Since his father was so often working late at the police headquarters, and his brother gone on missions, she'd done a lot of Sasuke's preliminary training herself. He was very good for his age, but not _that_ good. She was guilty of spoiling him a bit, and never pushed him as hard as her husband had pushed a younger Itachi.

For a shinobi, the teacher wasn't very adept at hiding his body language, and what it was saying was quite clearly: '_Oh crap, oh crap, I just told the clan head's wife I didn't expect much out of their kid. I just got this job, please don't get me fired_.'

On one level, he did have a reason to be worried. The Uchiha were notoriously easy to insult, and they tended to hold grudges, too. It was a characteristic of her clan Mikoto didn't much share, and she smiled encouragingly at the young teacher. "I'm glad to hear he's doing so well. But don't be afraid to nudge him toward more practice if you think he needs it, especially in endurance training. A shinobi can only get so far on pure talent."

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied, absently smoothing down his hair in relief. He obviously hadn't expected her to accept his authority as an instructor gracefully, and so Mikoto made a conscious point of doing so. The prissy behavior of some of her friends in the clan towards their children's teachers was frankly embarrassing. A lot of being a good shinobi was plain hard work, no matter what kind of incredible kekkei genkai one had been graced with, and shortcuts and favoritism in their student days were like as not to see her friends' sons injured or killed once they faced their first real challenges in the field.

"Good luck with your new class," she said to him, moving again toward Sasuke. He thanked her quickly before turning to greet the next parent.

Her son was still laughing and see-sawing away, although he wasn't doing much of the work—the other boy was a fountain of energy, and was still pushing off full strength with nary a hitch in his breath.

"Did you make a new friend today?" she asked, strolling over to them.

"Mmm-hmm...His name is—" he began, as the blond boy finally paused in his bouncing, and grinned at her.

Mikoto felt the sun-kissed air and sound of children's voices fall away, replaced with cold autumn rain and the screams of the injured and the dying. She didn't hear Sasuke speak his name. She already knew. The Kyūbi. The demon fox. No one knew how deep its influence on its prison went, but the whisker marks imprinted on the flesh of his cheeks were frighteningly telling. She grabbed Sasuke roughly by the arm, and pulled him from his seat, tipping the other side of the seesaw against the ground with a thunk and a pained grunt from his partner.

"Let's go, Sasuke," she said shortly, turning away from the abomination. Her son resisted, pulling her back in the direction of the other boy. She refused to meet his eyes again, afraid of the unearthly malice she might find there, if her gaze lingered. She had lost so much to that beast. Its arrival pulled her away from a retirement she'd finally made her peace with, away from a months-old baby. Nursing mothers, the old, the crippled, the children...everyone who could walk and owned a hitai-ate was thrust into service in the aftermath of that terrible day. Since so many of the Uchiha were stationed permanently in Konoha as members of the Military Police, their losses were staggering, the greatest in proportion to their numbers of all the major ninja clans.

Mikoto herself had survived largely unscathed, but the same was not true of her family. Her mother and maternal grandparents were killed when one of the emergency shelters was reduced to rubble by an errant thrash of its tails. Her two older brothers, fraternal twins, were among the first to engage the demon, and paid dearly for that selfless courage. Koichi was crushed into an unrecognizable smear of blood and viscera, and Kojiro suffered extensive chakra burns across his face and chest that resisted every medic's attempt to heal them. He survived the battle, but completely blinded and in horrific pain. The day he was lucid enough to understand what had happened to his twin, Mikoto came in to change his bandages, and found him facedown on the blood-soaked mattress with his naked tantō in his hand.

"Whyyyyy?" Sasuke whined, wriggling against her fingers, and breaking the grip of the horrible memory. Mikoto snapped back to the sunny day and the pleasant bubbling of children's laughter with a sharp intake of breath. "You told me this morning I should make lots of friends! Why can't Naruto be my friend? He's funny, and he didn't start crying like a baby when I hit him in taijutsu class. Not like that stupid girl with pink hair."

"I told you, we're leaving. Itachi is coming home from his mission tonight, and I need to start dinner."

Sasuke screwed up his face, and frowned at her. "He's not going to eat it anyway. He always grabs something with his team if he gets home late, and he _always _gets home late. Can't we stay for a little bit more?"

Mikoto sighed in exasperation. The perceptiveness of shinobi children wasn't always a blessing. Against her better judgement, she looked back to the fox brat. His grin had faded into an expression of vexation, and he was lamely pushing himself up and down on the seesaw, as if he couldn't care less he was now playing alone. He made no move to follow Sasuke, like he'd experience this strange reaction many times before, and knew better than to try his luck.

Now that she looked at him a second time, she noticed how thin he really was. Not growth-spurt thin, either. Underfed thin. His cheeks weren't nearly as round as they could have been, and the stained t-shirt hung far too loosely from his bony shoulders. Konoha was prosperous. No child should be going without good meals, especially the son of a kage, whether or not his parentage was common knowledge. There was something desperately wrong here.

A shinobi's thirst for vengeance, and a mother's compassion for a hungry child, intermingled in Mikoto's heart. He tried, hesitantly, smiling at her again. Aside from the scrawniness and the whisker marks, it was like looking at a portrait of the Yondaime. But that smile didn't make her think of his father. It made her think of his _mother, _and some of the last words they had spoken to each other_. _

_He'll be the same age as Sasuke, so I hope they'll be friends._

She released her hold on her son, and her hand dropped slowly back to her thigh. Sasuke giggled in triumph, and trotted back to Naruto's side. She let her eyes drift out of focus, and back into memory, while the boys resumed their games. Who did she think she was, to deny the last wish of one of her dearest friends? She hated the Kyūbi like she hated no other living thing, but Naruto was something else besides the Kyūbi. He was the only son of Uzumaki Kushina.

Six years ago, she had felt the demon's killing intent sweep over her, a primal terror so intense it had taken every scrap of her willpower not to jam her own kunai into her throat, just to make the feeling stop. If she let go her assumptions, and looked with an analytical eye, she could see none of that malevolence emanating from the boy in front of her.

She was familiar with the theory behind fuinjutsu, if not the practice, and knew objectively that it was possible to seal a bijū within a human being while retaining the vessel's humanity. Although she hadn't know the secret until after her untimely death, Kushina herself was proof of that. No one had confirmed nor denied anything, not to Mikoto, but she laid the pieces out, and assembled them into a perfect picture. She had been a very good student of history. She knew the Shodai Hokage possessed the ability to control the tailed beasts. She knew Uchiha Madara, the traitorous, fallen lord of the Uchiha, had used the Kyūbi against him in their final confrontation at the Valley of the End. She knew that the Shodai's wife, Uzumaki Mito (Uzumaki!)_, _had joined the battle to aid her dying husband, finally tipping it in the Senju's favor with her mastery of seals. Suddenly there was no more Kyūbi_, _the Shodai was taken back to Konoha and healed, and everyone except Madara lived happily ever after. Mito outlived her husband by a ridiculous interval, finally passing in her sleep at over a hundred and twenty years old, the same year Kushina had come to live in Konoha. Her textbooks never specified what happened to it, but considering how reluctant Iwa had been to attack Konoha itself during the Third Great War, she was willing to bet it was fear of the Kyūbi that kept them from storming the walls.

Looking back, it was hard to imagine the relentlessly cheerful, impulsive, free-spirited Kushina inspiring that kind of fear. She was everything the younger Mikoto hadn't been, raised in the stifling confines of expectation and tradition, and Mikoto loved her for it. She was the 'bad influence' who taught the clan heir's fiancée how to swear like a mercenary captain, to stumble home giggling drunk, to look the old clan head right in the eye, and refuse when he demanded she retire, and marry, before she made jōnin. She was what kept Mikoto sane during the first rocky years of her marriage to Fugaku, before they'd made their compromises and uneasy truce.

There was no way around it. She owed Kushina.

"You're right, Sasuke," she said, forcing an easiness into her tone she didn't feel. "I don't know where my brain is today. Come to think of it, your father said he'd be working overtime today too. We can eat late. Do you want to get a snack in the meantime?"

"Yeah!" he said, with enthusiasm. "How about the onigiri place? It's on the way home. Sort of...ish."

"I don't know...that's pretty far out of the way..." she said, slipping into mother mode before she could stop herself.

"Pleeeease? It's my first day really learning how to be a shinobi! Iruka-sensei said I was really good at helping him with demonstrations."

"Good point, good point," she conceded. Little sneak. He knew perfectly well how much difficulty his mother had saying no to their ikura-filled ones.

Naruto had turned away from their conversation, and resumed his lonely swinging up and down. He was chewing on his lip, and trying not to look desperately hungry. She walked over to him, and smiled in what she hoped was a loving manner. "Naruto-chan," she said, reluctantly appending the affectionate suffix, "do you like onig—"

His face lit up like a festival bonfire at the first spark of her attention, and he scrambled to his feet. "Yeah, I _love _onigiri! Not as much as I love ramen, but I don't really love anything as much as I love ramen, and anyways I will definitely come eat onigiri with you and Sasuke whenever you want. What's your name? Where are we going? Do you live in the really nice house on the edge of town? Sasuke says you do, but your family must be _really_ big to fill up that big house. My house isn't very big at all, so I thought—"

She held up a hand to dam the rush of words, which had absolutely no effect. "Naruto," she said, and then repeated herself, louder. He finally shut his mouth with a little pop. "My name is Uchiha Mikoto and you can call me...Mikoto-obasan. We're going to a restaurant that Sasuke and I like very much. Our house is pretty big, and I do my best to make sure it looks nice. I—" she began, as her brain finished processing the rush of questions. "Your house? You don't live by yourself, do you?"

"Yeah, sort of I do," he replied. "Stuff kept happening to me at the orphanage that I didn't like at _all, _and the ladies there kept making out that it was my fault, which was stupid, because why would I do things like set my own shirt on fire while I was wearing it? And so finally the Old Man let me move into my own apartment. The landlady cooks for me, and does my laundry and stuff, but I think she needs to see a doctor for her head because she forgets an awful lot. I heard that happens when you get old, but she isn't that wrinkly yet. I hope she's not sick."

Mikoto let his rambling wash over her, growing more and more horrified with every innocent word. Her conflict over his containing the thing that slaughtered her family faded away before the fact that someone _deliberately attempted to set a little boy on fire_. It had to get bad enough that an attempt to maim him, maybe even kill him, was what it took to get Naruto out of the public orphanage? Aside from mild malnourishment she didn't see any physical signs of injury, but that didn't mean it wasn't happening. Kushina's bruises from their sparring sessions had faded in hours, and even a broken leg hadn't kept her from running laps for more than a couple of weeks. At the time she claimed it was an ability of the Uzumaki clan, but Mikoto now suspected it had more to do with her secret...houseguest than her parentage.

Even in the grip of her own smoldering hatred of the Kyūbi, she didn't think she could bring herself to physically harm its young jailer. Especially since he turned out to be so ingenuously adorable. She'd only known Naruto for a few minutes, and, her history with his prisoner aside, had cautiously decided she liked him. She swallowed back the bitter anger at his nameless assailant, and her own feeling of negligence in the matter, and took one small, dirty hand in hers. She would make this up to Kushina. She _would._

-ooo-

Mikoto went to bed that night feeling more than a little queasy with guilt. When she and the boys walked into the small restaurant, the proprietor hadn't been able to fully mask his sneer at the sight of Naruto clinging to her hand. The service she and Sasuke received was as pleasant as usual, but somehow the waiter 'tripped' and almost poured scalding hot tea all over the back of Naruto's head. Only Mikoto's shinobi reflexes had kept the tray level, and saved him from a very nasty burn. Later, when Sasuke asked to try a bite of one of Naruto's onigiri, he discovered the ones the other boy received were packed with dry, burned-tasting rice on the inside, compared to the moist ones on his own plate.

The service for the table as a whole only improved when Mikoto murmured to Sasuke, well within their waiter's earshot, that the standards here had really slipped, and she'd be telling everyone she knew to avoid the place.

Naruto didn't seem surprised by any of it, which was depressing. Did he receive this treatment from everyone? No wonder he seemed so uncomfortable sitting at their table. His manners were not poor so much as nonexistent, but she could tell he was trying his very best to sit still and behave in the best way he knew how. He spent the whole of the small meal watching Sasuke like he had a sharingan of his own, aping his every gesture as if he could absorb years of etiquette training in half an hour. Naruto turned out to be an extremely energetic child, but he heeded her gentle corrections to speak more quietly, and stop kicking the table, with gratifying determination.

At six he already had a reputation as an audacious prankster and hellion-in-the-making, but he wasn't a bad kid. In terms of his intentions (if not his impulsive actions) she would even go so far as to rate him better than most. He seemed to genuinely care what other people thought about him, and was desperately eager to please if given the chance. What struck her most was his concern for the wellbeing of people who clearly had none for his. In particular, the garbled story of the borderline-abusive caretaker that lived down the hall made her furious on his behalf. Apparently, she would 'forget' to bring him the home-cooked meals the Hokage was paying her to prepare, and Naruto would have to dig into his meager pocket money for convenience store ramen cups to fill his empty belly. Mikoto decided to start preparing an extra bento every school day, and stowing it nonchalantly in Sasuke's book bag for the foreseeable future.

She turned restlessly in the large bed, and wished desperately for someone to talk to. Fugaku was working a difficult case this week, and would probably end up catching whatever sleep he could on the futon he kept in his office closet. She scowled up at the ceiling. Having another warm body in the bed was comforting in a small way, but it wasn't like she could talk to him about something like this anyway. Her Uchiha friends wouldn't do either; to a woman all of them considered her friendship with Kushina a topic to be avoided like the discussion of an embarrassing rash. Their jōnin instructor had held an unassuming affection for both of them, and would have been ideal, but Hatake Sakumo had been dead by his own hand for a decade. Yūhi Daishiro, the last of her old genin trio, was still among the living to the best of her knowledge, but he was leading a long-term mission in the Land of Lightning, and was so unreachable he could be living on the moon.

Save herself as of seven hours ago, the Hokage was the only other person she was aware of that took an active (if limited) interest in Naruto's continued wellbeing. But he was so busy, it would be weeks before it was brought to his attention, and even if it was there was no guarantee he could change things. Konoha was the most democratic of the ninja villages, and that meant the Hokage had no right to give the civilians direct orders unless their actions were directly threatening the village's integrity. She didn't think the mistreatment of one small boy was going to make the cut.

Mikoto was a naturally companionable person, and had cultivated a long list of friends. It was a sucker punch to discover all the ones she could really count on were either dead...or so far away they might as well be. All the loneliness she'd been trying to push away since she awoke that morning came crashing down like the waters of a breaking dam. Mikoto's eyes began to burn with tears. She ground her fists into the sheets, and tried to force them down.

"_Why didn't you check on him_?" her conscience screamed at her in Kushina's most outraged voice. "_You didn't even go to see him once. You left that up to Daishiro when he'd just been accepted into ANBU, and didn't have time to babysit, and we both know Kakashi was too much of a fucking wreck after the Kyūbi killed Minato and Rin. You called yourself a shinobi when you were scared of a baby? You're nothing but a pretty little coward._"

"I had my own responsibilities," she whispered to the empty air. "I had a newborn of my own. The southern clan compound was almost leveled, and half the Uchiha were homeless. There was so little time..."

"_Right_," the inner voice scoffed. "_You always were the responsible one, picking up the slack for me all the damn time, even when I didn't want you to. I'm sorry I was so busy being dead I couldn't pull my own weight the one time I really needed your help._"

Mikoto hadn't cried for years, since the night of the memorial before that mountain of a grave. But tonight she turned her face into her pillow, and lost her battle against the straining tears. "I'll do better, Kushina," she whispered between stifled sobs. "From now on, I'll do better."

* * *

And there we have it. Chapter 1. Chapters 2 through 19 are already written, save for final polishing, so like it or not there will be more where this came from in a timely manner. I will endeavor to update once a week. Deadfic makes DigitalTart a sad panda!

Another note, this time on the Gratuitous Japanese. I do not speak the language of the source material. I do not even _pretend_ I speak the language of the source material. All Naruto-specific terminology (mostly jutsu names) has been kept in Japanese for consistency, since some of them sound really stupid in English. I've also kept the honorifics, since there are shades of meaning you can't get otherwise. I've probably butchered them, apologies to any Japanese speakers who may have come across this. Feel free to have a chuckle at the gaijin's expense, and if you're feeling charitable, correct her.

**Glossary:**  
_Bento—_a Japanese style boxed lunch.

_Onigiri—_rice balls wrapped in seaweed, often filled with various fishy and/or pickled ingredients for flavor. Fills roughly the same culinary niche as the sandwich.

_Tantō—_a straight-bladed style of dagger. A lot of the Naruto cast seems to carry these around once they become chūnin, but Sai is the only one who seems to use his.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for tuning in to Chapter 2 of Desperate Ninja Housewives. Mikoto will not at any point be screwing the boy who mows the lawn of the Uchiha mansion, but other dramatic developments are sure to...develop. Be sure to catch next week's exciting episode that absolutely isn't guest-starring Teri Hatcher!

Also, I made an art [digitaltart . deviantart . com/art/Young-Itachi-200808800]. Remove spaces between dots to view. I think Itachi has succeeded in completely devouring my brain.

**Thank you to AuthorWithIssues for agreeing to be my beta reader. Your efforts are appreciated!**

* * *

The next morning Mikoto was back to her usual placid self, although Itachi kept drifting odd looks in her direction over breakfast. They weren't compassionate looks. Just odd, like he'd been completely aware of the noise, but didn't care enough to ask why his mother had been sobbing alone in her bedroom. He'd been like that practically his whole life, never cruel, just...cold. Mikoto told herself for the millionth time that it shouldn't bother her, that it was how Itachi was...and then for the millionth time failed to heed her own advice.

She packed the boys off to their respective commitments, Sasuke to school and Itachi off to a short-term mission, and had the house to herself again. This time around, she knew better than to loaf around in it, and drive herself crazy. Now that her head had been cleared by a good night's rest, she realized that she wasn't as alone as she'd thought. Her first and only genin team was completely intact: Uzuki Yūgao, Gekkō Haruka, and Kameda Ishimaru.

She had spent so long thinking of them as the goofy kids they briefly were, she didn't feel comfortable broaching a subject of this nature, but that wasn't being fair. All of them were adults now, sneaking into their mid-twenties. Unlike a lot of jōnin instructors, she had kept up good relationships with all of them, even if she didn't have the chance to see them as often as she would have liked. Quite a few of her former peers were more jōnin than sensei, and taught only under duress, because there weren't enough warm bodies to distribute to the rookie teams. Those genin always seemed itchy to pass the Chūnin Exams, for no other reason than to be rid of their crazy teachers. Mikoto had worked her team very hard, managing to manhandle all three to the final round of the exams on their second try, and had seen two of those pass on that exam and the third on the one six months later. She was pretty sure they all hated her guts for months after that second attempt, but, like good little ninja, in time they managed to see underneath the sadistic training sessions to the genuine love she had for them. She worked them so hard as genin so they'd be strong enough to survive, even thrive, as chūnin and beyond. All of them had thanked her for that hellish month at one time or another, with identical wry smiles on their faces.

Ishimaru was the most sensitive of the lot, and was also a bit older, since he'd stayed in school two extra years to be trained as a medic before being promoted to genin. He was also the child of civilian parents who had made their home on a farm kilometers out from Konoha, and consequently had lost the least to the Kyūbi. Better yet, his apartment was plausibly close her to favorite clothing boutique, so she could 'drop by' without feeling like a total fool. She changed out of her housedress into a loose tunic and calf-length pants, and gave her hair a cursory brushing before stepping out the door. Fugaku didn't like to see her wearing pants, preferring the 'feminine grace' of an old-fashioned kimono, but the old grouch wasn't around to see, was he?

It was another lovely summer day, and Mikoto took her time browsing through the open air shops on her way to Ishimaru's building. The Chief of Police pulled in a tidy sum every year, so her face was a welcome one to the shopkeepers. She collected a few odds and ends she didn't realize she needed, and some new formal heeled sandals, since her old ones were becoming too scuffed for shoe polish to salvage. So burdened, she let herself in through the unlocked back gate, and knocked briskly on Ishimaru's door. She could hear someone closing drawers in a hurry. Good. He was home.

Ishimaru was not the one to answer the door. It was his lover Yamashiro Aoba, and the chūnin was missing both his trademark sunglasses and his air of affability. He had a backpack stuffed with clothes hanging from one hand, and for some reason was clutching what she assumed to be Ishimaru's toothbrush in the other. "Uh, Mikoto-sensei," he said stupidly. "Ishimaru...Ishimaru's not here. They got bad intel. They weren't bandits, they were all shinobi, and...I'm going to visit him now if the medics will let me."

The handle of Mikoto's shopping bag slipped through her fingers, and a small bottle of perfume smashed on the concrete landing. Normally, that news would not induce the kind of panic in a shinobi she saw written all over his face, but Ishimaru's rookie team was an unusual unit made up entirely of medics in training. Though they were taught to handle themselves in a fight, their primary purpose was search-and-rescue, or support of heavy-combat teams. They were not sent alone on missions where fighting more intense than a few scuffles with civilians was expected. She was too polite to say it to him aloud, but someone at the mission office had _seriously_ fucked up. She didn't blame him for expecting the worst. So did she.

"How badly was he hurt?" she asked softly, while Aoba juggled his things around, until he found his keys, and locked the place up.

"I don't know. I just learned he was dropped off at the hospital. Do you want to come with me?"

"Absolutely."

"I'm going to take the roofs, it'll be faster with the lunch rush and everything, so I'll meet—"

"Who said I'm not running the roofs too?" she said, cutting him off. "I can leave this stuff here." She prodded the shopping bag with her foot. "If you don't mind unlocking the door again, and putting my purse into the other pocket of that backpack."

He did as she asked, and pushed off from the sturdy railing of the stairwell. Mikoto followed, as soon as he'd cleared the roof space on the building across the alley. Lucky she'd decided on pants and flat sandals today. The first couple of landings were less than graceful, but soon the comfortable rhythm of chakra concentration and release in the muscles of her legs returned like she had never left it.

They arrived on the roof deck of the hospital after about fifteen minutes of rooftop travel. Mikoto found herself embarrassingly out of breath once they reached their destination, but he had other things to worry about, and didn't call her out on it. She secured visitor's passes to the burn ward for herself and Aoba, who looked so sick with worry he was afraid to open his mouth in case he threw up on the poor receptionist.

Ishimaru was in room 2245. She took a deep breath, preparing herself for something barely recognizable as human. A vision of her brother Kojiro welled up in her head, his handsome face mutilated beyond recognition by the Kyūbi's chakra, drugged nearly into insensibility but somehow still screaming. She forced it away, and pushed open the door.

She let the breath out in an audible rush when Ishimaru blinked at his new visitors, and managed to smile hazily back at them. His round, genial face was toned to sickly gray beneath his tan, and his cinnamon hair still matted slightly with mud, but all in all he didn't look too bad. She did a quick tally of the limbs hidden by the hospital sheets, and came up with the same number he'd owned last time they'd spoken. The relief was so immense her knees momentarily went weak. Yūgao had beaten them there, and Ishimaru's 'ducklings' were lined up in a neat row near the window, looking battered and grubby, but not seriously injured. The violet-haired kunoichi nodded to Aoba in greeting, and then to her.

He slumped into an empty spot on the bed near Ishimaru's hips, and looked over the extensive bandages obscuring his right side. "You scared the shit out of me," he said. "What happened? Are you...in a lot of pain?"

"Katon," he wheezed, and immediately started coughing. Mikoto picked out the words 'rogue ninja', 'ambush', and 'gave me the good drugs' between the painful spasms. The fit continued for some time, and eventually he gave up trying to speak.

The tallest of his genin stood up to fill in the gaps, worrying at the torn cuff of his shirt and not meeting anyone's eyes. He was a Hyūga boy with light brown hair that fell in a long braid down his back, dressed in the traditional off-white robes favored by the clan. "We were supposed to be rendering medical aid to a town caught in that earthquake near the Kusa border," he said. "They'd had some problems with bandits on top of everything else, so once all our patients were stabilized Ishimaru-sensei decided to organize a preemptive strike to scare them off, before they tried to steal any of our medical supplies."

Mikoto nodded. It had been a good idea, at least in theory. Medicines were often more attractive than plunder to someone living outside the law, since they were more immediately useful. A show of force by a small group of trained shinobi was often enough to rout the less stouthearted troublemakers without bloodshed, and, when your team was composed entirely of medics, avoiding any unplanned confrontations was paramount.

"Except we didn't scare them off," the Hyūga continued. "It turned out one of them was an old war deserter from Konoha, and knew he'd be recognized if Ishimaru-sensei got a good look at his face. There were some low-ranking Iwa ninja too, also deserters. They tricked my byakugan by setting up a false camp that was hardly guarded, while the rest waited to ambush us out of my visual range." The boy frowned. "That's how we knew we were really in trouble. Who else but another shinobi would know the maximum range of a genin's byakugan right down to the meter? As soon as we reached the middle of the camp," he sighed, shamefaced, "we got stuck in a doton jutsu that turned the ground to muck so we couldn't leap clear."

"But Ishimaru-sensei saved us," one of his other students piped up, a girl with a rather prominent nose and the characteristic Inuzuka facial tattoos. Three ash-gray puppies were curled up on the floor around her feet. "He couldn't knock the guy's handsigns apart before he finished, so he jumped in front of him, and whipped out this awesome fūton—"

"Fūton?" Yūgao interrupted skeptically. Ishimaru had Suna blood in him from somewhere, and the wind styles were all the cards he had to play in terms of elemental ninjutsu. They were his only long-range jutsu, and worse than useless against a katon user.

"Fūton," the girl affirmed. "He turned the fire back on the deserters, but he must have been tired from healing all those people, since his chakra ran out before the rogue ninja's did. That's how he got burned. The guy from Konoha got one of sensei's kunai right in the eye, and lucky for us the misfire from the jutsu burned the Iwa shinobi pretty bad, too." She smiled lopsidedly at the Hyūga. "Kaito-kun did some fast talking about probable survival rates without antibiotics, and they surrendered in exchange for us patching them up a bit. We handed them over to a Kusa team we met on their way back home. They were happy to get the bounty."

"Not the smartest thing you've ever done," Mikoto said, shaking her head as she addressed Ishimaru, "but it worked." He shakily raised his uninjured arm, and gave her a thumbs up. Ishimaru was good at seeing the bright side in any situation. The narcotics probably helped.

"It could have been worse," the first genin said, looking guiltily down at his incapacitated and drug-addled teacher.

"Much worse," the third added, joining the conversation for the first time, from behind his high-collared coat. Must have been an Aburame. He neglected to remove it even in the pleasant summer warmth.

"I already spoke with his physician," Yūgao put in. "He's going to be on the injured list for a while, but the damage is mostly cosmetic, and his movement and breathing shouldn't be permanently impaired." Her stern gaze softened as it swept over his students. "He also mentioned that you three did an excellent job of taking care of him on the way back to Konoha. If you'd let an infection take hold so far from real medical facilities, he probably would have died."

Mikoto shifted her weight against the wall, and smiled to herself. She felt less like a mother, and more like a team captain, than she had in a long time, and in the best of all possible ways. She was proud as hell of Ishimaru, who in his genin days had been far and away the most timid of the team. It seemed her student had picked up a few tricks of his own after she'd set him loose, and had, in turn, passed them on to his own students. When the master-student cycle worked, _this_ was what could be accomplished. She wasn't an adherent of the Will of Fire philosophy and related Senju inspirational rubbish (she was too loyal an Uchiha for that), but some days she almost wanted to admit her clan's ancient rivals had a point.

Aoba sidled closer to his injured lover, and glanced at her knowingly. Mikoto could take a hint. She stood up straighter, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Ishimaru needs his rest," she said, her tone making it an order. "Why don't we all get going. I'm sure he'll be up for a visit tomorrow."

The favor she'd come to his apartment to ask would have to wait. Even if he was emotionally steady enough to shore her up, his throat and lungs were too badly damaged for him to speak properly. Still, even though he'd barely said five intelligible words to her, for some reason she felt a little better. She'd screwed up royally with little Naruto, but as a mentor she'd come through for Ishimaru. Naruto wasn't even seven yet. She had time to correct her past neglect.

Everyone save Aoba filed out, herself and Yūgao last. "Has Haruka come by?" Mikoto asked idly.

Yūgao shook her head. "I stopped by her apartment on the way here, but she's down south. Probably won't be back in the village for a few days. I left her a note." They walked to the elevators in companionable silence, and when they reached them Yūgao paused with her hand on the call button. "Excuse me, sensei," she said, "but I have a favor to ask you. Sasuke-kun has started school by now, hasn't he?"

"Mmm."

"Then I was wondering—would you be able to take over training Ishimaru's team for a while? The next round of Chūnin Exams are a little over a month away. I would pitch in myself, but...my mission schedule might be getting very full very quickly," she said, absently rubbing a spot on her right deltoid.

"I'm sure the Hokage will recognize your abilities," Mikoto said warmly, keeping her reply equally ambiguous. Yūgao had expressed an interest in applying for ANBU the last time they'd spoken. She must have been invited to participate in the tryouts. Despite the unspoken prejudice against kunoichi from the ranks as a whole, with her skills Mikoto didn't think a place on the elite squad was out of her reach. Like herself, Yūgao was a ninja that fought primarily with her head, instead of her fists, a master of traps and ambushes. In an ANBU operative serving during peacetime, subtlety and stealth were often more valuable than flashy ninjutsu, or the strength to crush rocks in your teeth. Before her marriage was arranged her old teammate Daishiro had urged Mikoto to try out herself. If she'd gotten in, it would have made her one of the first female members in history, but that was one goal her future father-in-law had managed to shoot out of the sky. She wanted Yūgao to make it, and succeed where she had faltered. "That boys' club needs a little shaking up," she added tartly.

"Thank you," her student said softly, with a small nod and a smile, and returned to the subject at hand. "The other instructors will be adding the kids to teams as they see fit, so you wouldn't have to go with them on missions. This is strictly informal tutoring."

"Well, I would have the time, but I'm so far out of fighting trim it's not even funny. Would they even consent to being trained by a housewife? If someone gave that option to me as agenin I would've thought it was a bad joke."

A twinkle of amusement appeared in the younger woman's eyes. "Considering how well you managed to beat their sensei into shape for his exams, I think they might if that housewife was you."

"True enough. I'll definitely think about it, and let you know no later than the end of the week."

-ooo-

Her answer would have been an unequivocal yes, but she wasn't sure how Fugaku would take it. She'd really enjoyed teaching, and being presented with a no-strings-attached opportunity to return was perfect. But tutoring the three genin was skirting dangerously close to un-retiring as a jōnin_, _and there were few things her husband disliked more than being reminded his wife probably had the potential to become a better shinobi than he was.

She pondered how best to approach the delicate topic for the rest of the day. Mikoto could charm her way into almost anyone's good graces, a talent that had served her well in her brief career as an infiltration specialist, and possibly even _more_ so as wife of the Chief of Police. Despite her status, people let their guard down around her. The wives of his detectives confided things in her their husbands would never dream of telling Fugaku. She cultivated her plot of informants with frequent invitations to tea and charity luncheons, and it rarely failed her. She tapped her sources, assembled a plan of attack, and, after careful preparation, broached the subject at dinner.

"Have you made any progress with your case?" she asked, over his favorite dish of hearty beef yakisoba. She already knew the answer to this question. Otherwise she wouldn't have asked. He was always testy if he felt like a case was stagnating, and sometimes took it out on her, if she was dumb enough to give him the opening. The secretaries at the headquarters were notorious gossips, occasionally irritating when she was the subject of their whispers, but such a valuable source of information about the state of village politics she always forgave them.

"We have, finally," he said, sounding immensely pleased with himself. "The Kiri spy was stubborn as they come, and somehow warded against the more basic mind probes, but Inoichi-san cracked the seal this morning. We should have a list of his contacts by tomorrow."

Sasuke slurped noisily at this noodles. Itachi, as was becoming more frequently the case, was absent. "That's really cool," he said. "Some of those Kiri ninja are creeeeepy—they do this weird thing to their teeth to make themselves look like sharks. Or maybe they're born like that, which is...well, that's even creepier. I'm glad you got him. When I think about one running around our village messing stuff up..." he trailed off and shuddered. "When I graduate, can I help you with cases like that?"

"Of course you can," his father replied, helping himself to more noodles, and not really listening.

Sasuke's shoulders slumped noticeably. Mikoto was dignified enough not to roll her eyes at the table, but she _really_ wished her husband would stop doing that. In private he spoke rather highly of Sasuke's abilities when the subject came up, and she knew he loved him on some level, but it wouldn't hurt to let the boy know now and again. And Sasuke was starting to be able to tell when he was being 'humored'. Eventually, he was going to work up the nerve to say something like 'When I graduate, can I run off to join a secret organization of S-class rogue ninja with some insane plan to take over the world?' and Fugaku was going to give him full permission. Not that he'd ever take his father up on it, but still.

"That's such a relief," Mikoto gushed. "You've been working so hard lately, I feel like I hardly ever see you. With the boys gone all day too, it's a little lonely."

He shook his head. "It was a good break, but this is only the beginning. We still don't know how extensive their network is. I don't expect things to settle down for another month at the very least."

_A month of you out of my hair? Perfect, _she thought_._ "Oh," she said sadly, externally the picture of the dutiful wife. "I see."

He put down his chopsticks, looking as apologetic as he every got. "You don't have to stay home all day. Let Iriko-chan help you with the cleaning...we can certainly afford it. Go out and enjoy yourself, now that Sasuke is in school."

"I don't know what I would..." she began, as if her entire world was confined to dust pans and laundry baskets, then smiled as if a wonderful idea had occurred to her. "I know! One of my genin team—Ishimaru, remember him?—was badly injured on a mission, and is going to be stuck in the hospital for weeks. The timing was just awful, with the Chūnin Exams coming up, and he couldn't find anyone to tutor his team while he's recuperating. I'm _so_ out of practice, but better than nothing, and they're such talented kids it would be a shame for them to have to wait another six months to enter."

"That's an idea, I suppose," Fugaku said, not entirely pleased but not openly opposed, either.

Mikoto could work with that. She was just doing a favor for a bedridden friend, out of the goodness of her heart. That it meant pulling her shinobi gear out of the closet was incidental. She picked daintily at her noodles, as if patching together a plan in her head. "I can work with them while Sasuke's in school, so I'll be home in time to meet him, and get dinner on the table."

"Hmm...this is going to be the first joint Exam since the war broke out, isn't it?" he said contemplatively. "Konoha will need a stronger showing than usual."

"Oh, that's right," she said. "I'm not one-hundred percent sure, but I heard it's in Iwa this time."

"Iwa?" he sneered. A large chunk of the police force had been mobilized near the end of the war, including Fugaku, and he held on to his grudges like a starving wolf. Iwa and Konoha were now officially at peace, but the war was recent enough there was still plenty of bad blood. More than a few of the Konoha genin would be looking for vengeance in the stadium, and the opposite would be true as well. It was expected to be a particularly deadly exam. "We need all the strong genin we can get. Go ahead. See what you can do with them."

Mikoto thanked him and went back to her bowl. _Hook, line, and sinker, _she thought between delicate bites_. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you to AuthorWithIssues for agreeing to be my beta reader. Your efforts are appreciated!**

* * *

Mikoto returned to visit Ishimaru once more that week, and happily reported to him that his genin wouldn't be teacher-less for long. He'd taken to communicating with a pad of paper and a stubby pencil while the heat damage to his lungs healed, and wrote in very large characters '_I almost feel sorry for the little brats.'_, underlining it twice, after she related the good news. He was no doubt remembering his first training session, after his team committed to the Exams for their second time. Haruka and Yūgao just about had to carry him home.

A few days later, Sasuke found himself shooed out of the door, and a rice ball shoved in his mouth, at seven-fifteen in the morning, even though the school was only fifteen minutes away. Luckily, he was a naturally early riser, and too bewildered to protest the disruption in routine. Besides...it gave him more time to sweep for Naruto's traps before the first bell rang.

Her temporary team were to meet her at Training Ground 3 at eight sharp, and Mikoto needed time to prepare. Their first session together was primarily so she could feel out their strengths and weaknesses, and tailor her lessons accordingly. That, and make sure they knew very well how dangerous this 'delicate flower of the home' could be if she so chose. Yūgao might have warned them how strict she could be, and they might behave, but she had the feeling she was going to have to put her foot down very hard on some genin toes this morning.

She would have preferred the opportunity to build up a bit of camaraderie before putting them through the wringer, but there wasn't time—she was more than a little apprehensive about the home team competition. The hosting village always fielded far more candidates than the visitors. The kids were going to need some toughening up before they were ready to go up against young Iwa ninja with their parents' scores to settle. To make it even worse, the Exams were undeniably stacked against medical specialists. Such teams often split up for the purposes of the test, attaching themselves to incomplete combat-focused groups who'd had a member promoted. Team 2 had already decided they'd be testing together.

Yes, they were going to need her help, and they weren't going to like it. In the long run, it didn't matter if they thought she was as sadistic as some of the career torturers in ANBU T & I as long as they didn't come back from Iwagakure in bodybags.

Mikoto edged into the bedroom closet, and pulled out a battered, very heavy box from the bottom of a stack. She sneezed once at the dust she disturbed, and opened it. One by one she laid the contents out on her bed, and began to undress. She picked up the mail shirt, considered the weight and the ambient temperature, and pulled it on. She didn't expect her young charges to be very accurate with their projectiles, but a beginner's wild throws could be dangerous primarily because they were so unpredictable. She shook out the high-collared gray shirt, frowning at the loose threads attaching the Uchiha emblem to the right sleeve. She'd meant to mend that, really. Six years ago. The patch she pulled off completely, and tossed back in the box so it wouldn't come loose and get lost. The black leggings still fit, if she did a funny thing with her abdominal muscles, and didn't breath in too hard. Her hair she twirled up in a bun, and secured with a square of cloth tightened by a cord to keep it out of her face. Finally, she shrugged on her collarless flak jacket, and buckled on the pouches for her throwing weapons.

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. The gentle wife and mother had disappeared, and a severe-looking kunoichi had taken her place. With her hair pulled back, and the familiar weight of her shuriken on her hip, she felt herself standing straighter, unwilling to cast her eyes down as a proper Uchiha woman should.

She buckled on her high open-toed boots and long gloves, and left through the window instead of the door, although she doubted she'd be recognized dressed as she was. She took the roofs, and then the trees, to the training field, purposely arriving early to give herself time to catch her breath. Her new students could _never_ be allowed to see how out of shape she was; it was beyond embarrassing. Her younger self could have kept such a pace going for hours, but after the births of two children her dedication to her old training routine had lapsed, to understate things. Although...there was no particular reason she couldn't take it up again, as long as she started slowly. She had the time, and, as she discovered after a brief moment of consideration, the will. After an absence of years, Mikoto felt that old yearning to be able to prove herself on the field, to test her limits against another's, and find herself victorious. The first of her students arrived in the clearing before she could ponder too closely who she wanted to prove herself _to_.

It was Hyūga Kaito first, followed a few seconds later by the other two, Inuzuka Hana (plus three quarreling puppies), and Aburame Shimazen taking up the rear. She'd stopped by the Records Office yesterday, and requested their personnel files and a couple of C-Rank mission reports to skim over. On paper they seemed like a very promising team. Kaito was the surgeon and rising star; Hyūga medics were highly sought after in the Medical Corps, since one of them was practically a walking surgical theater all by themselves. They could diagnose fractures or internal injuries with complete precision under the most rugged field conditions, and perform bloodless, delicate surgery without the need for the scopes and incisions other physicians relied upon. The other two weren't prodigies, but far from a burden. Hana was training as a veterinarian, which was going to win her a lot of friends among all the ninken contracted with Konoha shinobi, and her own companions would be invaluable on missions that required tracking down an incapacitated ally whose exact location was unknown. Shimazen was just as intriguing. Even she had heard of the techniques pioneered by his world-renowned mother, a woman who possessed a very unusual colony of kikaichu specializing in the analysis and production of various chemicals. If he was anywhere near as proficient in his use of the insects, it would allow him to manufacture a wide array of drugs almost at will.

"Mikoto-_sensei," _ Kaito said, putting a sneer into the honorific. "Good morning."

"Good morning," the other two chorused, slightly more politely.

They followed his lead willingly, it seemed. If she asserted her authority over him, the other two would probably fall into line. His blank white eyes were defiant, scanning probable strength and skill even without his byakugan active. He did not look impressed with what he found. That was fine with her. If he wanted to be so foolish as to judge her abilities based on her looks, he was welcome. She'd have _that_ beaten out of him soon enough. It wasn't a conceit a chūnin could afford.

His contempt would be almost funny, if she wasn't aware of the extenuating circumstances. She didn't know him well yet, but she guessed that most of his current swagger was feigned. He had looked much more like a frightened child when she saw him hovering near his sensei's hospital bed last week. He seemed unusually attached to Ishimaru—given his status in the clan, his home life was probably ugly right now. The business with the attempted kidnapping of Hyūga Hinata by Kumo had recently been resolved, but at the cost of a Branch House member's life. It must have been a severe blow to learn how little your own clan valued the life of one member over another, when they were separated only by an accident of birth.

The boy was currently acting very un-chūninlike, but she still wanted him to pass. According to Ishimaru, he was the most promising young medic the Corps had seen in decades, and he could do a tremendous amount of good once he was able to operate on his own. In Ishimaru's absence, it would be her job to ensure he didn't get his skinny neck broken in the Exams before his talents could come to fruition. The other two, her student had confided, needed more polish on their tactics before they were really contenders for a promotion, but participating would be a good experience for them. Provided they were proficient enough to survive it.

"Good morning, ducklings," she replied cheerfully, "...do you mind if I call you ducklings?"

"_Yes,_" Kaito stonily, looking at her like she was insane. The other two exchanged glances confirming their young leader's unspoken assessment.

"I thought we could start off with a little exercise to see how far along your offensive skills are," she said, continuing like she hadn't even heard his objection, and rooted around in a vest pocket for three scraps of paper. "On these are three tracking seals, the children to the parent seal I have on my palm." She held her left hand up and sent a brief pulse of chakra through it, to illuminate the design through the fabric of her gloves. "To activate them, prick a finger, and dab it in the center. The seal will transfer from the paper to your bodies. The objective is for at least one of you to get close enough to touch my bare skin with that finger for the full five seconds it takes to transfer the child seal back to its parent. You have until two o'clock—I have to be home before my son gets back from school. Are you ready?"

They all nodded.

"By the way, this is a live-weapons exercise. If you don't come at me with the intent to kill, you'll lose, and next time I see Ishimaru I'll have to tell him you were beaten by some housewife who hasn't been on a real mission in a decade. Begin."

"You're wearing gloves," Shimazen pointed out unnecessarily. "How are we supposed to—"

At her unspoken signal, one of Hana's puppies took the initiative, and lunged at her ankle. There was a small puff of smoke and a shower of branches, and it fell on its rump with a stick in its teeth. Mikoto resisted the urge to coo from her perch in the trees above their heads. Ninken just _hated_ that.

She targeted Kaito with her first genjutsu, right as he (predictably) activated his byakugan, bathing his panoramic vision in light so intense he could be staring into the sun from every direction. He could theoretically see through the illusion, but instinct took over before he could make the effort. He screamed, clapped his hands over his face, and deactivated the doujutsu. As an afterthought, she tossed out an area illusion of the overpowering scent of cheap perfume to take care of Hana and her dogs. The clearing soon echoed with a chorus of puppy sneezes and vivid cursing. A quick glance confirmed Shimazen was too preoccupied with his fallen leader to go after her. That was disappointing. A lack of initiative robbed their team of a good opportunity. A kikaichu colony's collective mind was too alien for her genjutsu to affect it, so he was the best-equipped to go after an illusionist like herself.

She took advantage of their preoccupation to disappear into the trees. Three rookie genin versus one very out-of-shape jōnin—the game was on.

-ooo-

It was another four hours before she let them actually see her again, having lead them on an erratic and frustrating chase through the forested training ground. Whenever their leader tried to pinpoint her location with his byakugan, she'd blind him again. After a couple more tries, he gave up. She got more creative with Hana, throwing out, in succession, the smell of barbecue, kerosene, pine resin, and decomposing fish. Shimazen ought to have tagged her with a kikai already, and short of stripping naked she'd probably never be able to pick it off, but he was letting the other two lead the way. If he didn't build up confidence in his tracking abilities, he was never going to get anywhere.

She dusted off half a dozen of her old tricks during the leisurely pursuit—nothing worse than what she'd originally done to Kaito, but damned annoying all the same. There was the classic 'covered in bugs' illusion, which had Hana ready to strangle an offended Shimazen before Kaito intervened; an area illusion that moved the stream running through the grounds a step to the north and drenched them all in freezing water; and another that transformed a massive berry bramble into what looked like a lovely clearing to stop and have a ration bar.

While it was true genjutsu could do no physical harm, the goal of the art was to make opponents so frightened, angry, or disoriented they committed a fatal error, or to immobilize them so they could be captured alive. A spray of ice could seem to lock their limbs in place. The lip of a cliff could appear to extend a step past its true end. An array of exploding tags could be completely concealed in 'bare' ground.

Despite her relative restraint, by the time they did finally catch a glimpse of her, all three genin were ready to chew bricks. If they had begun this exercise with any reservations about punching a housewife in the face, they'd melted away by now.

"Having fun, kids?" she asked, with more of that sadistic cheer, after finally letting Hana pick up her trail and 'corner' her against the cliff face.

All of them glared. She could feel it even behind Shimazen's sunglasses.

There was a point to this torment. Their teamwork looked good on the surface, but she wanted to see if they held together under pressure, without Ishimaru there to fill in the cracks. The Chūnin Exams always included some kind of mission simulation, and it was absolutely imperative the three of them stick together for the duration of that stage. They were going to be hungry, sleep-deprived, possibly injured, and heartily sick of each other's company, but under no circumstances could they allow their teamwork to falter. Unlike some teams, which included a heavy hitter who could dispatch multiple opponents solo, these three would have to work together very closely to keep from being picked off by teams with more firepower. They had performed adequately in that regard, at least, and thanks to their clans' respective skills were nearly impossible to ambush. But she was very worried that none of them seemed to be formulating a strategy for taking her down. They would have to plan very carefully, bluff their little heads off, cut deals, and in general be far more devious than they'd acted so far in order to clear the survival stage. They didn't seem to be getting anywhere, and she needed to see how they fought. Maybe it was time to give them a shove.

She targeted Shimazen first, guessing from his reticence that he was the least skilled short-range fighter. Kaito sensed her intent, and leaped between her and her intended target, sliding into a jyūken stance as Shimazen scrambled hastily out of the way. The smaller boy was perfectly ready to defend himself, too, and looked more surprised than herself at Kaito's interference. Mikoto slid around his blows without much effort, using her sharingan to memorize his sloppy forms for later critique. Even she could tell he'd sacrificed quite a few hours in the practice ring for more time in the library. By Hyūga standards, he must be an embarrassment. The way he leapt in to cover his friend was one half sweet and one half pathetic.

She played with him for a few more moments, taking mental notes, before removing him from the fight with a stunning blow just below his sternum. She tossed him aside, coughing and gasping but not seriously hurt. Hana let out a cry of distress, and charged her. She was a fairly tall, sturdy girl, the corded muscle in her bare arms testament to her more balanced approach to physical and mental training. She was surprisingly fast, and facile with the controlled chaos of the Inuzuka style of taijutsu. They went back and forth for a while, her opinion of the girl's physical skills rising.

Only Mikoto's crimson eyes warned her of a sudden gathering of energy in Hana's fingers before a chakra scalpel buzzed into existence, extending her reach by half a very, very sharp hand. Without her sharingan, Hana might even have been able to score a hit, if she was lucky and Mikoto was not. With the sharingan_, _it was not a contest. Mikoto twisted away from the bluish chakra blade, and caught the girl's wrist in an agonizing hold that shattered her concentration. The deadly glow faded. It had been a decent effort, and a second or two in the right place was more than enough time to sever a tendon or major artery. The chakra scalpel required such sustained concentration it was difficult to use in a melee, but, employed by a skilled and experienced medic, it gave a tremendous advantage in unarmed combat. The man who took over the Medical Corps after Tsunade-sama left the village was reputed to be unrivaled in its use.

Mikoto disappeared in an illusory swirl of leaves, to give the genin time to nurse their bruises, while she got her breath back from farther down the cliff wall. She dispatched a shadow clone to watch them, while she found a nice, sun-warmed rock to have some water and a few handful of trail mix. She was dusting the salt from her hands when the clone's memories flooded in. It made her dizzy for a moment. Shadow clones were extremely useful, and she had the chakra reserves to create two dozen before tiring herself out. But even when she was still on active duty, she'd _never_ gotten any more comfortable with that sensation.

Eyes closed but ears open, she sifted through the memories attempting to settle themselves in her brain. It looked like the earlier 'illusory bugs in the bra' incident she'd orchestrated between Hana and Shimazen reopened an old wound, and, despite Kaito's diplomatic efforts, the Aburame had stalked off in a huff. It was the stupidest thing he could possibly have done—too stupid for a genin with as much field experience as Shimazen had. She had yet to meet the Aburame that didn't value both logical actions and group cohesion above nearly all else, and the tantrum went violently against character for one of them. He was probably setting himself out on a bait hook so the others could ambush her.

She'd take it. It wasn't as though she had anything else to do, and they needed to be taught that such a transparent ploy wasn't going to make the cut for a chūnin. She didn't bother masking her presence with an illusion. If he was smart he'd tagged her before the exercise even began, and his scouts would be able to locate her even if their host couldn't.

He was muttering inconsiderate, and probably untrue, things about Hana as he walked, hands in the pockets of his long coat, and pretending he didn't know she was there. Five chakra signatures were creeping up ever so stealthily from behind her. They were masked passably well, and another genin wouldn't have been able to sense them—even the dogs, which was impressive. She listened for a few moments, debating what to do with him, when she heard: "...not fair. No way sensei's sensei could be this much of a cun—"

Now that was too much. Her hands flowed through the signs for the shunshin jutsu, and suddenly she was behind him. It wasn't the best one she'd ever pulled off—she infused the technique with far too much chakra, and her vision went black for a split second. She covered her stumble by bringing her hands down hard on his bony shoulders. "Care to repeat that?" she said sweetly into his ear.

He shrieked, and his surprise, at least, was not feigned. A small swarm of insects boiled out of his sleeves, but they didn't attack her. Aside from a few nips they barely siphoned off anything from her large chakra reserves. All they were doing was zipping about in a panic. Shimazen seemed to be having trouble controlling them. She wondered absently whether it was the Aburame equivalent of wetting one's pants in fright.

He was so preoccupied with his disobedient allies, he didn't even have the presence of mind to attempt to grab her, even though she held no weapons. Disappointing. She released him, and vaulted away as a snarling Hana dropped from the trees into the space she had recently occupied, right into the cloud of beetles. She started to cough violently, and was replaced by a puff of smoke and a choking puppy with a mouth full of bugs. Another two rushed her from either side, cracking twigs as the went, in an attempt to pin her where she'd landed. They was substantial...that would be more of her jujin bunshin, then_. _ Mikoto executed a second, and more elegant, shunshin. The two Hanas collided with simultaneous pained yips as the last attacked in tandem with Kaito, who had finally revealed himself, trying to overwhelm her with wild blows, while the Hyūga snuck in a single disabling hit. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shimazen scuttle off into the bushes.

She knocked them both on their backsides, and leapt to a narrow ledge on the cliff, then clear over their heads and back into the tree cover, where Shimazen had retreated. He had hidden himself from her eyes, but her sensory abilities were too sharp for his chakra to likewise disappear. Was he planning something, or was he running scared?

Her eyes caught another Shimazen in front of her, imperfectly hidden in a tree slightly to her left. The chakra she could see was a heaving, buzzing mass of very weak signatures—he didn't even know better than to use a kikai bunshin against a sharingan. The tactics _definitely_ needed work. Her hands formed the single sign she required for a weak, but long-ranged, and very accurate, katon. She drew in a sharp breath, and spat the spear of flame at the clone, which exploded into its constituent bugs at the last instant. The ones at the center were too slow to avoid it, and burned to ashes.

The real Shimazen jumped away in a rustle of leaves, his weak ruse destroyed. She followed him into the tree branches, and drew out some shuriken, aiming to frighten him rather than cause any real injuries. He dodged all but one, which clipped him in the calf. His control broke just as his foot made contact with the bark, and with the anchoring chakra disrupted he slipped forward and smacked his face into a low branch before he could catch himself. He grunted in pain, and fell to the forest floor, blood streaming from his nose, and the cuts around his eyes where the frame of his glasses had broken. That she hadn't intended, but she couldn't very well rush to his side and start fussing over it, even if the motherly side of her wanted to. He was a medic. If he'd injured himself in the barely controlled fall he could perform his own first aid, and on the field he'd have to do so whether or not he was in pain.

She withdrew to plan her next action, leaning against the mossy trunk of a downed tree. The genin had wasted more than four and a half hours chasing her with nothing to show for it. None of them had managed to touch her for even a full second, never mind five. She was beginning to doubt Ishimaru's assurances that his team was ready for this exam. He'd always been a soft touch, and in a shinobi this was not a desirable personality trait. If he hadn't turned out to be such a skilled healer (which mostly kept him out of combat situations) he would have washed out long ago. Had his team pestered him into allowing them to compete together? Had he done so against his better judgment, to be 'nice'? Mikoto scowled into the trees. She expected better from a jōnin she herself had trained. Unlike some, she did believe there was a place for kindness in a shinobi's life, but if it increased the chances your teammates would be injured or killed, it was in the wrong place.

She levered herself up from her seat, and then fell back with an undignified half-stumble when a wave of dizziness crashed over her. Mikoto shook her head to clear it. That was odd. She shouldn't have this much trouble catching her breath, either. Her heart was still hammering like she'd just finished a lap around the village walls, and her meager lunch was churning in her stomach. She gave herself a few minutes of rest before moving again, but the tightness in her chest didn't go away. It felt, if anything, even worse. She got to her feet again, despite the uncomfortable sensation, and staggered when the forest around her began spinning alarmingly.

_Definitely poisoned_, she thought, as the ground pitched and tossed her to her hands and knees. Several things began to make sense all at once, and, despite how ill she was starting to feel, she smiled. She hadn't even noticed Shimazen plant the envenomed kikaichu, and she really _had_ walked right into their ambush-within-an-ambush_. _It didn't mention in his dossier that his specialized colony could manufacture poisons, only medicines, but even drugs one purchased off the shelf at the pharmacy could be dangerous in large doses, or if mixed with other, incompatible chemicals. They hadn't been trying very hard to disable her in combat, because they had been planning on doing so using their medical knowledge, and there was no sense in wasting strength they had to conserve very carefully. She wouldn't be surprised to discover at least some of Kaito and Shimazen's incompetence in taijutsu was an act, intended to lull her into overconfidence.

Using the limited resources at their disposal, they had concocted and executed a rather clever plan. Turned one of her favorite weapons against her, in fact. Poison could be time-consuming to prepare, and dangerous for the clumsy, but for someone as physically weak as she was it, was one of the best ways to even out a fight. And it worked hand-in-hand with her genjutsu. Even something as innocuous as a few cups of sake significantly increased susceptibility to illusion, and she knew how to concoct hallucinogens so powerful even another Uchiha would no longer be able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Whatever Shimazen had whipped up wasn't quite to that caliber, but it had frayed her powers of perception considerably. Slumped over in the moss, she barely even sensed it before one of Hana's dogs strolled out from the underbrush.

"Not feeling so good, huh," it said smugly, in a squeaky voice. "Kaito-onisan told me to tell you that you're going to start experiencing...uh...what was it again?" It paused to worry its jaw with a hind leg in a charming canine approximation of a head scratch. "Oh right...'tachycardia, convulsions, and death' unless you let us give you the antidote in under an hour. We're all hanging out by the training dummy with no head, but you probably knew that already. Bye!"

It bounded off into the ground cover, without waiting for an answer. Make her come to them in the state she was in...she couldn't say she didn't deserved it. She pulled herself to her feet, and began weaving her way towards her soon-to-be victorious team. She was almost certain they were bluffing about the 'convulsions and death' part, but not certain enough to bet her life on it. Drug overdoses could turn very ugly, very fast, and she'd already gotten what she wanted from this startlingly crafty batch of genin.

When she staggered to the clearing holding the battered dummies, she found Kaito sitting cross-legged on the grass across from Shimazen, one hand glowing gently green as he tended to the other boy's broken nose. The front of his coat was covered in blood, but he no longer seemed to be in pain.

"I surrender," she panted, half collapsing against the trunk of a convenient tree.

Intent on his work, Kaito didn't even turn to look at her. "Hana," he ordered. She rose from her place on a stump, and approached Mikoto, drawing a kunai just in case. Hana pushed up Mikoto's sleeve, and pressed two fingers against her bare arm, until the seal unlaced itself and flowed back to its parent.

Kaito scrubbed his fingers clean on the grass, and finally looked at her. "There is no antidote, if you're wondering," he said, not sounding nearly as pleased with himself as she felt he had the right to be. "The shortness of breath and nausea will go away by themselves in an hour or two. May we go?"

"Not yet," she said. "Sit down." She didn't feel too bad, as long as she remembered to breathe at a reasonable pace, and kept her head steady. Hana sat, without any backtalk. Shimazen rotated to look her, squinting without his glasses. "All of you—good work," she said. "Ishimaru told me you were a talented team. I had my doubts, but you've proven him right."

The others looked confused, and Kaito insulted. "You spent the entire time playing with us. If this had been a real mission, you could have killed us a hundred times over. All we did was get in each other's way, and trip over our own feet." He looked away, his jaw clenched.

"Well, this wasn't a real mission, and teaching you how not to trip over your own feet is why I'm here. I'll see you tomorrow at eight," she said. "We'll be beginning weight training. Wear your chainmail if you have it."

"Thank you for your time, Mikoto-sensei," Kaito said stiffly, rising to his feet, "but that won't be necessary. I will not be entering the Exams this year. Or any year. Hana...Shimazen...my apologies." He shouldered his bag and began to walk away.

There was a moment of dumbfounded silence. "_WHAT_?" Hana burst out, whipping around. "Are you nuts? You can't _quit_! Can't we talk about—"

Kaito didn't turn around. "I have to go. Hyūga-sama is expecting me."

"You're not thinking rationally," Shimazen said, rising quietly, and taking a few steps after him. "Without you our team is incomplete."

"You can replace me," Kaito said over his shoulder.

"No," Shimazen answered. "I don't think we can."

Kaito ignored him and resumed walking.

"Kaito-kun," Mikoto said. "Come here and sit down. That's an order." For a moment she was afraid he wasn't going to stop, and she wasn't in any condition to chase after him if he didn't want to be caught. Thankfully, he did turn, and tossed his bag back at her feet, albeit reluctantly.

"I'll see you two tomorrow," she said, another order.

Hana looked like she wanted to say something, but bit her lip and held it back. Shimazen collected her things, and silently held them out to her. The two genin began the walk back to the village in glum silence.

Mikoto cursed inwardly. What a mess. This had been simmering since the disastrous mission to the Kusa border, if not even longer. If she'd had any idea Kaito's resolve had deteriorated this much, she never would have pressed them the way she had. Ninja made a career out of being hard to read, but the Hyūga boy had taken this to new heights. Ishimaru probably wasn't even fully aware how close to the breaking point his prize student had been. His real teacher should have been the one to set Kaito back on course, but Ishimaru wasn't here. That was part of the problem. Thanks to her own efforts, Kaito feared and disliked (if not outright hated) his new substitute teacher, and any support she offered would be looked at with suspicion. What a _mess._

"Hana-kun is right. You can't quit," Mikoto said.

"Why do you even care?" he asked, scowling at a clod of dirt next to her boot. "You think we're nothing but pests."

"Because you are my student's student. And despite my first impression, I don't. The exercise was a psychological test as much as a physical one. I wanted to see if your team would splinter under pressure—the same kind of pressure you'll be facing in the exams. I don't torment my students for my own amusement."

Under most circumstances, she much preferred being the understanding, big-sisterly jōnin instructor archetype than the callous bitch, but Kaito didn't know that, and he looked skeptical. "A test?"

"All of you passed."

Kaito snorted. "_I_ passed," he said. "I find that hard to believe."

"Why?" she asked. "You kept your team working together under stress, and formulated a successful plan to eliminate a much stronger and more experienced opponent. What makes you so convinced you're not fit to be a chūnin?"

"You were the one sparring with me. That didn't make it obvious?"

"No. It didn't." She crossed her arms over her chest. "Explain it to me."

Kaito drew his knees up under his chin. "I'm a complete failure. Everyone in the clan thinks so. Not at being a doctor, maybe. But at being a ninja..." he snorted again. "The only reason I even graduated on time was because of these." He split his fingers into a V, and pointed to his pale, unearthly eyes. "I can see tenketsu as well as anyone else, but I'm so slow and clumsy it doesn't matter. My taijutsu is so far behind the other kids in the clan, I just can't...I mean, my cousin Neji-kun can knock me on the floor, and he's _eight_. I'd be dead weight on a real mission. I'd hold my team back, maybe even get them—"

"What happened to Ishimaru is not your fault," she said firmly, cutting him off.

"You weren't there. It _was_. _I_ fell for the trap and _I_ was the one Ishimaru-sensei jumped in to protect. Shimazen and Hana would have gotten out on their own, and out of range. I can't be responsible for something like that ever again! If I stay in Konoha, I can work at the hospital, and still help the people that need it. I wouldn't be putting anyone else at risk." His hands tightened around the fabric of his pants, and he looked down at the ground, trying to blink away tears.

She pretended not to notice. Team 2 was closer than most, and it was painfully obvious how much the boy cared about his teacher and his teammates. But that attachment had twisted in on itself, leaving him poisoned with guilt if they came to any kind of harm. Every shinobi had to come to terms with that guilt, quit the life they'd chosen, or go mad. She felt for him—her own crossroads had been Hatake Sakumo. For months after her teacher's suicide, she wracked her brain for some word or gesture that could have lifted his suffocating depression, some tiny thing she had failed to do that would have made the difference. Time was a salve for that failure, and now she knew had done everything she could. It just hadn't been enough. The only option was to keep living her life, and cherish the gifts he'd left behind. Sakumo had been a deeply compassionate man, and the finest of teachers. She could only hope she was following in his footsteps.

"You're afraid?" she asked, letting some gentleness into her tone, so he didn't think it was an accusation.

"Yes," he admitted, almost petulant. "I'm afraid. I told you I wasn't much of a ninja."

"Whoever told you ninja are never afraid?" she said. "Your fear is a tool. It keeps you from being overly reckless, but you _cannot_ let it control you. Even great ninja still feel fear. Even the Hokage. The difference between them and you isn't that they're faster or stronger. It's that at this moment you've decided to surrender to your fear, because it's the easy way out. And that is what myself and your teammates—_and Ishimaru_, if he were here—would find unacceptable."

When he said nothing, she continued. "You're a Hyūga. You were born with a gift, and it's your duty to put that gift to the best use you possibly can. You're a brilliant field medic; you'd be wasted in the hospital, and you know it. And yes, as a field medic you will sometimes be required to defend yourself."

"But that's just it!" he said. "How can I? I've tried and tried, and my jyūken never gets any better!"

"So what if your jyūken is terrible?" she said, and he flinched from the raw truth. "Have you ever tried long-range weapons? Elemental ninjutsu? Looked into a summoning contract?" From the blank look he gave her, she assumed that was a 'no'. The Hyūga were fiercely proud of their eyes, possibly even more so than her own clan, and that pride had, ironically, blinded them to the needs of the young man sitting in front of her. "I might have been able to beat you hand-to-hand," she continued, "but when I was younger, for an Uchiha, my taijutsu was awful. I was too weak, too small, and had no endurance. So I concentrated on what I could do, genjutsu, and made myself one of the best. The way I fought was unorthodox, but it worked, and I succeeded in my missions. The Hyūga elders might not like it at first, but if you have to abandon jyūken, and find some other way to complete your missions, so be it. It might be hard, but they should come around eventually, if you can prove you're a skilled shinobi."

"But what if they don't?" he asked quietly.

She took a deep breath. "Then that's their failing, not yours. If your family doesn't understand...I'm not saying it won't hurt...but you'll still have the respect of your team, and the rest of the Medical Corps, not to mention all of the Konoha shinobi whose lives you'll be able to save. They're more important than the elder's pride. Much more."

Kaito uncurled himself, and looked up at the sun hanging just above the treetops. "I really do have to go," he said, no longer petulant, but contemplative. "I want to try to catch up with Hana and Shimazen on the way home."

She nodded. "Tomorrow at eight?" she asked.

He hesitated for a moment as he picked up his bag. "Yes," he said. "I'll be there."

* * *

Sorry about all the OCs, kids. There aren't a whole lot of canon characters the right age to fill out the cast the way I wanted.

Kaito's role was originally smaller, but the more I wrote him the more I liked him. I have a soft spot for bookish, unappreciated screwups, I guess.

**Glossary:**  
_Jūjin bunshin_—beast/human clone.

_Shunshin no jutsu_—body flicker technique.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thoughts:**  
Do they have broadcast television in Naruto? I don't know. The tech level is this world is so unbelievably uneven I'll assume it doesn't matter. Seriously, folks, how do you invent instant ramen before the telephone? Seriously, _how_?

**Thank you to AuthorWithIssues for agreeing to be my beta reader. Your efforts are appreciated!**

* * *

Over the next few weeks, in between her obligations to her household and Ishimaru's genin, Mikoto would retrain _herself._ Every day she pushed a little harder on her early-morning runs, another rep with the weights, a little further down on the stretches. She probably wouldn't ever regain the speed and flexibility she'd had at eighteen, but damned if she wasn't going to try. Her chakra control had slipped along with her physical conditioning, but all that was needed was practice to hone it back to its fine edge. She discreetly participated in the same exercises she assigned her students, watching her own abilities flower again in step with theirs.

Ishimaru had done a decent job refining his team's skills in medicine and teamwork, but offensive ninjutsu was probably his weakest area, and with his sole elemental affinity being the uncommon wind type he couldn't teach them what he did know. Their training scenarios became more elaborate as Mikoto rediscovered her love of teaching that had been dormant for so long. She brought out and polished up a selection of jutsu from her arsenal for Hana and Kaito (Shimazen politely declined, preferring to stick to his kikaichu). Although she was still a bit worried about Kaito's emotional fragility, he seemed to have renewed his commitment to advancing. With Mikoto's help he discovered an unknown affinity for suiton ninjutsu that dovetailed nicely with his extensive anatomical knowledge and frighteningly adroit chakra control. Since people _were _about three-quarters made of the stuff, he discovered he could injure them severely by using the water in their own bodies as a weapon, and from a much greater distance than was required for jyūken. After one particularly gruesome session with a case of melons, Mikoto started to feel preemptively sorry for any Iwa genin unlucky enough to make him angry.

She'd let them off easy today, and hadn't dispatched a shadow clone to observe their night practice. It was a tacit nudge go and relax for a bit. Well...them and herself. She was curled up on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn in her lap, Sasuke snuggled against her left side, and she winced when he reached over to grab a handful and pressed against the impressive bruise on her ribs. That was one of Hana's, lucky girl. Mikoto surreptitiously readjusted Sasuke, who didn't notice his mother's discomfort. He was utterly absorbed in the highly dramatized account of the founding of Konoha flickering across the black and white screen. Mikoto was keeping a running tally of how often the actors playing Uchiha got their handsigns out of order, but she had to admit there was a genuine emotional force to the cast's performances, lapses in research aside. Sasuke had started the film on the opposite end of the cushions, but Mikoto had strategically decided to hold the popcorn hostage. As it wore on he'd inched closer and closer, tired of reaching for the snacks, until she had him right where she wanted. It was a little depressing she had to resort to trickery to get him to cuddle with her like they used to when he was smaller.

All three of them used to do this, what seemed likes ages ago. A half-hour of television serials was one of the few leisure activities her husband had permitted a younger Itachi. After he completed his homework and whatever additional training his father had assigned, he would sink down on the couch to join her, exhausted from the long day. Sasuke would usually crawl over from his pile of toys, lever himself up by grasping the cushions, and whimper until she lifted him onto the couch. He was a very good-natured baby, inquisitive and rarely fussy. His antics were usually enough to set a gentle smile on his elder brother's face, although Itachi would rarely go so far as to play with him, only watch the games his mother initiated. Itachi lost interest in the shows when he graduated the Academy. There didn't seem to be enough time for such indulgences after that.

Mikoto smothered a yawn with her free hand. This film played on frequent rotation, and she knew it was long. As he promised, Fugaku continued to work long hours at headquarters, rarely arriving home by the dinner hour. Today was no different. Despite the progress he claimed to be making in the case, he was unusually subdued and reluctant to relate any of his successes to her. Itachi too was away from home almost as often, sometimes on missions but other days absent for reasons he refused to discuss.

As the film wound up to its climactic battle, Sasuke turned at the sound of the front door opening and closing, pushing himself to his feet and bracing his palms against the back of the sofa. Itachi's light footsteps creaked down the floorboards. "Do you want to watch the rest of this with me?" he called down the hall. "It's almost at the best part!"

"Not tonight, Sasuke," he said, pausing at the doorway for a moment. His face was drawn and tired, closer to thirty than thirteen.

"There's, like, fifteen minutes left. Please?"

Perhaps it was a trick of the flickering light, but Itachi seemed to pale as his eyes tracked over the figures on the screen. It had reached the final battle between Madara and the Shodai, and the film studio had spared no expense in recreating it. A sea of twisting branches rendered in choppy stop-motion animation sprouted across the river valley, interspersed with bursts of impressive pyrotechnics.

Itachi shook his attention free and dropped his eyes from uneven glow. "I'm sorry, but I have work to do," he said quietly, and turned away to get himself something from the kitchen.

Sasuke sighed, disappointed, and flopped back down.

"Turn that garbage off and go to bed," Fugaku called angrily from the front of the house. He stopped in the doorway Itachi had just vacated, glaring at the the offending film.

"Hnn?" Sasuke grunted, confused. It was the end of the week and not nearly time for bed. His father should have been aware of that.

"I'll assume you didn't hear me," he added caustically. "I told you to turn that garbage _off."_

Mikoto could feel a sheen of sweat welling up on her skin from the heat of the anger her husband had brought in with him. Anger and fear. Something had happened—or was about to happen—and she doubted it had anything to do with her or Sasuke.

"But it's only..." Sasuke began.

"Did you go deaf since breakfast? You know the consequences of not doing _what_ I ask _when_ I ask. I expect proper discipline in this house."

His tone had gone from annoyed to dangerous. Sasuke swallowed hard. The punishment for insubordination meant cutting a cane from the stand of bamboo in the garden, and then bending over the lip of the wooden porch encircling the house for as many lashes as his father felt was appropriate. It was a cruel, humiliating, and pointless exercise Mikoto could never in the past summon up the will to prevent. "Sorry, sir," Sasuke said in a small voice, and meekly twisted the knob on the front of the television until it went black with a small pop. Without looking at his father, he backed out of the room and disappeared upstairs.

Mikoto put the popcorn aside on the end table and rose to speak to him. "It's eight o'clock on a Friday," she said, quietly, too low for Sasuke and Itachi to hear. "There's no need to be so..." She trailed off as Fugaku narrowed his eyes in disbelief. She'd intended it to come out a sweet and soothing plea for mercy, but her tone was too harsh. Venomous. The boy had done nothing wrong. Threatening to beat him for the crime of being merely confused was a ghastly abuse of paternal authority; one that Mikoto wasn't going to swallow whole.

He grabbed her by the upper arm, not quite hard enough to bruise but very close. "I expect proper discipline in this house," he repeated. "From my wife no less than from my children."

Mikoto drew in a sharp breath. Was that a _threat_? Her subconscious reacted as though it was. She could feel a warm prickling in her eyes, the sensation that preceded her sharingan flaring to counter one. She could smell the sake on his breath, too, and more of that roiling anxiety.

With effort, she unknotted the muscles of her arm. "I'm sorry," she murmured, although she wasn't. "I didn't mean anything by it." There was no reasoning with him when he'd been drinking. He'd never struck her before, but the few times he'd come close he'd been in this sort of mood. She could ask Itachi what was going on tomorrow, perhaps.

Satisfied, he released her. "Go make sure Sasuke is settled," he ordered. "Itachi and I have things to discuss."

She nodded mutely and collected the bowl to deposit in the kitchen. Fugaku and Itachi had already locked themselves in the study when she ascended the stairs, and their forceful whispers faded to nothing as she passed. She didn't bother to wish them a good night.

Sasuke had brushed his teeth and threw on his nightclothes in double time, and was huddled underneath the covers when she came in. "I didn't mean it," he said miserably. "I really thought he didn't know what time it was."

"I know," she said soothingly, pulling the blankets straight. "Your father just had a long day. Sometimes he gets so tired running the police department, he takes it out on the people he loves. Can you forgive him?"

"Mmm-hmm," he sighed.

"Still planning to head the department when you grow up?" she asked.

"Of course I am!" he said. "When I graduate from the Academy I can help him, and then he won't get so worn out. It seems like too much to do, being Clan Head and Chief of Police at the same time," he added contemplatively. "If me and Itachi split the work, then it wouldn't be so bad."

Mikoto smiled. "I think that's a wonderful idea. Why don't you tell him later to see what he thinks?"

She settled in to read to him for a while, until keeping his eyes open seemed to become more work than it was worth. She shut the door behind her and paused with her hand on the frame. The light was still on in the study. With nothing else to do she curled up in bed to read and listened to the minutes, then hours, tick away alone.

Despite the late night, Itachi was gone by the time the sun rose. When pressed, her husband muttered something about 'clan business in Water Country' and refused to tell her how long Itachi would be gone. Sasuke was understandably upset he hadn't been allowed the chance to say goodbye before his brother left. It was one of their small rituals, but one that the little boy held dear. He still considered Itachi the best shinobi in the world, but was beginning to grasp how much danger he put himself in day after day, and always made sure to extract a promise to train him after the mission was done. These promises stayed only half-kept, but Sasuke seemed to take some comfort in them anyway. Itachi would invariably beg off after his return, promising to take the time from a tomorrow that never came, but he _did_ return, and that was the most important part.

The mission filled Mikoto with an unease that she couldn't pin down. The Uchiha had supply caches and old hideouts scattered all over the continent from the time predating their settlement in Konoha, which did required periodic upkeep, but such chores were never as urgent as Itachi's assignment seemed to be. She was the one that kept those records, a form of extended housekeeping traditionally given over to the clan head's wife. As she thought, the two bases on the islands had been checked and restocked as recently as six months ago.

She tried to go about her morning chores with her mind carefully blank, but her curiosity was powerful when roused and she was having difficulty ignoring it. By noon she had geared up to meet her temporary team and gotten as far as the front door when she stopped, cursed under her breath, and marched back upstairs to Itachi's room. He kept nothing that would finger him as ANBU under his father's roof, but what he hadn't taken would be just as telling. There were signs of hurried packing—his bed was unmade and the door of his closet ajar. His weapons chest was locked, of course. With a small boy in the house, anything less than flawless weapons etiquette could easily end in tragedy. Mikoto knelt in front of it, biting her lip, then extracted a set of lock picks from a hidden flap in her heavy gloves. It didn't take her long to pop the lock; it was intended to discourage small and curious fingers, not fellow shinobi. The contents were unremarkable. Standard shinobi tools—kunai and shuriken, senbon in small wooden boxes, various tags in neatly labeled piles, razor wire, vials of poison. And his short-range radio. Mikoto frowned. That meant this was a solo assignment. Even ANBU almost always worked in pairs. She had a bad feeling his porcelain mask was still hanging in his locker at headquarters.

She flipped the onswitch on the inside of the chest door that would ensure it locked itself and backed out of the closet. Mikoto made her way to the training ground and began drilling her students with only half her mind on the work. Her snooping had raised more questions than it answered. That Itachi went as a representative of the Uchiha, not Konoha, troubled her almost more than his hellish destination. He was ANBU, and besides the Uchiha _had_ no clan business in Kiri. The leader of the Bloody Mist village was psychopathic even by the standards of shinobi; a young man barely eighteen years old who set schoolchildren against each other in fights to the death. He'd assumed the Mizukage's mantle at fifteen, expanding exponentially upon an already well-entrenched tradition of betrayal and brutality in that village. His predecessor died a natural death by drowning, as did the entire ruling council. Four floors up from sea level on a cloudless day.

The people of the countryside loathed the hidden village and everyone in it—and for good reason. The civilian government had been butchered in the military coup that coincided with the Sandaime Mizukage's rise to power, and the Yondaime crushed the lingering resistance with an even more sadistic relish. The Kiri ninja took whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, be it food, money, medicine, or women, keeping the common people terrorized and destitute. They, in turn, had begun lashing out at any hidden villager they could, the most obvious being those with kekkei genkai. Since trained ninja were too difficult to attack directly, most of the abuse was heaped on the undeserving, the children of rape with the poor luck to bear outward signs of their parentage. It was not a place anyone from Konoha would go willingly.

Days passed, and Fugaku continued to resist all her efforts to extract more information. It bothered her, but her days were full of lesson plans and her nights meals with neighbors and friends. And there was one more thing that succeeded in fully distracting her from the prickle of suspicion at the back of her mind.

She found herself in possession of a third son. Naruto had begun to wander home with her and Sasuke after school whenever she would let him, which became more and more often as the days went by. Besides making sure he was properly fed and sporadically washed, she began instructing him on the various niceties of civilization for which he had no other teachers. If people complained the boy was a beast, it was no wonder. He had no table manners, no concept of when it was okay to scream and when it wasn't, and no patience for sitting still unless she let him run Sasuke ragged on games of tag. Neither had he ever been taught his handsigns, how to meditate, how to handle bladed weapons, or even his basic kanji, among the dozens of other things the children of shinobi came to class knowing. Left on his own, she discovered he stayed up watching television all night and slept through class during the day, and none of the teachers would bother to wake him unless he was snoring like a chainsaw. Consequently, no homework assignments were ever completed and almost all tests were failed. All of these factors combined to give him the reputation of a less-than-lovable idiot and probable rank of Dead Last when progress reports were to come out mid-semester.

And it wasn't fair, because Naruto _wasn't_ an idiot. He behaved very much like what she remembered of Kushina during their school years, although to more of an extreme. He had so much physical energy it was difficult for him to sit and concentrate on books or worksheets, but he possessed a sort of intuitive, idiosyncratic brilliance that wasn't well measured by the tests he was given in the classroom. He learned with his body, not his eyes, and when he applied himself he could absorb new techniques like a sponge. In this area, it was Sasuke that was teaching him the most. He used Naruto as his personal punching bag in his quest to catch up to Itachi, and Naruto, in turn, was doing his damnedest to catch up to Sasuke, and in amazingly creative ways. With any other child she would have been worried for his safety, but Naruto was so determined, not to mention durable, that she only got out the first aid kit yet again and didn't bother warning them to be careful. When he was grown, and out in the field, his remarkable resilience and ability to improvise quickly and well would make him a valuable squad leader. It was too bad she seemed to be the only person in the village to have noticed this.

Almost all the other parents looked at her as if they were questioning her sanity when they went to fetch their own children, and she returned their stares with defiance. There weren't many people who could match the intensity of an Uchiha's gaze, and she noticed that the discrimination against Naruto became slightly less blatant now that she had tucked him under her wing. She never openly threatened anyone, that was much too crass, but her status and connections to the police made harassing the blond boy seem suddenly less tempting. She was almost naive enough to think that some of the parents might be warming up to him. That perhaps the village was beginning to accept him as a boy, not as the prison for a demon. _Almost. _

-ooo-

A month into the semester, Sasuke came home from school and promptly handed her a square of folded yellow paper, and those dreams were dashed.

"Mizuki-_sensei_ said I had to be sure to give this to you, it's important," he said, holding it out to her. Mikoto accepted the paper from him and scanned it while he began tucking into the after-school snack she'd placed on the table.

A parent's meeting. That was odd. She thought they'd gotten most of those orientation meetings for parents of new students out of the way in the first week. But as she read further, she saw it wasn't only for parents of first-year students. It was for everyone. Her hand tightened on the leaf of thin paper until her knuckles went white. 'A coalition of concerned parents...', 'Possible danger to the students...', 'To discuss whether undesirable elements should be removed from the classroom'...Naruto. This had to be about Naruto. Someone or several someones had gotten it into their heads to remove him from the Academy. They were doing it through official legal channels, too, so the persecution was no longer a police matter. Was this why the other parents' bullying had tapered off? Because they were planning something even bigger?

Mikoto folded the notice up and put it in her apron pocket. Whoever had orchestrated this needed to be taught they had crossed the wrong woman. Unfortunately, she didn't have many connections in the school, and she was operating blind. Until now, she hadn't needed any. Itachi had attended for barely a year before being promoted to genin, and she hadn't had the opportunity to get to know many of the teachers. She didn't know if anyone in the administration had it out for Naruto because he was a jinchūriki or simply because he was a troublemaker. Over the next few days, she dropped a few hints into her pool of friends, and got no bites. That meant it was probably a civilian—the two groups tended to form discrete social circles. Her attempts even went so far as to interrogate the school secretary under a genjutsu to attempt to wrestle out the names of the instigators, but the grandmotherly woman had only photocopied the notices and was ignorant of any plots. Out of options, she applied for an audience with the Hokage, but found his schedule booked past the date of the meeting. The parents had been given very little notice, which must have been intentional. It lessened the chances anyone against Naruto's expulsion would be able to muster support or even attend.

She was becoming anxious for him. If this plan succeeded, it would affect more than the parents' precious illusions of safety. They certainly wouldn't want the boy running loose all day wrecking havoc, so what did they want to do with him? Lock him up all alone until he became as misanthropic and crazy as Iwa's vessel, to be rolled out of storage like a ballista every time a war needed fighting? She had never seen the Gobi herself, but some of her friends from her Academy days had faced him, and the consensus was that he was almost as dangerous to the men on his own side as he was to his ostensible enemies. Even when he wasn't transformed.

That _would not_ happen to Naruto. The prospect frightened her, and not only out of concern for his wellbeing. He was kind, loyal, clever in the most unusual ways...and extraordinarily strong. Each additional tail made a bijū more fearsome than the one before, with the Kyūbi the most powerful of them all. Out of curiosity, pretending it was a game, she'd tested his chakra reserves. They eclipsed those of many adult jōnin at just six years old, and chakra capacity only grew with age. As a grown man, properly trained, he could very well become the most powerful shinobi alive. The thought of that strength corrupted by cruelty and abuse chilled her to her bones. A Naruto that had nothing to cherish or protect, and the power of nine tails at his beck and call...no mortal could hope to contain the magnitude of that destruction. He could probably turn the whole of Fire Country to slag if he so chose. Beyond frustrated, she asked herself how anyone could be so blind. But she already knew. That could have been her, a month ago, if she still thought the Kyūbi had any influence over him. That thirst for vengeance _was_ blinding. It twisted up perfectly good people into the very monsters they were so desperate to destroy, and she had almost become one of them.

When she took the time to think about it, it shocked her to see how quickly she had gone from despising Naruto to protecting him as if he were her own son. He was no angel, but something in those big blue eyes made you want to do right by him, if you'd only take the time to look. Although she wished dearly it had been otherwise, perhaps Naruto was fated to be the vessel for a demon. He loved so deeply and so strongly none of its malice was allowed to pierce through.

-ooo-

The night of the meeting, she collected the two other families among the Uchiha that had school-age children and were available to attend. They were her only four nominal allies. Both of the fathers were rank-and-file members of the military police and the mothers from small and unremarkable shinobi families. Both women, since they had married into the clan, had next to no status and treated her with deference. Their children were older but played with Sasuke fairly often, and since Naruto was now often found wherever Sasuke was, the rambunctious blond was sometimes included in their games. On the short walk to the school, they agreed with practically everything she said, one even going so far as to comment that the Uzumaki boy was 'rather sweet when you got to know him'. It was bolstering to the ego, but she had a lot of people to convince and not very much time. And, as far as she knew, she had no one with power on her side.

The meeting was held in the gymnasium to accommodate the crowd, and the assistant teachers were still scurrying about setting up folding chairs when she arrived. She smiled at Iruka when he trotted by with an armful, but wasted no time in working the room. She greeted a few old school friends, probing the general mood. One or two of the civilian mothers looked at her smugly, and she immediately marked them and everyone in their little conversational circles as hostile. A few of the clan heads or their wives were in attendance, none of whom she could count firmly as allies. She nodded coolly to Hyūga Hiashi as she passed him, who looked stern, regal, and incredibly offended by the seating arrangements. He didn't seem to like Naruto (although she'd caught his daughter shyly trailing the boy with an adorable flush on her cheeks) but he didn't go out of his way to be punitive, either. Inuzuka's Tsume's throaty laughter identified her immediately, and when Mikoto greeted her she had to slither out of the way of a hearty back slapping and inquiries about what sort of horrible things she was doing to her daughter. People paused in their quiet conversation to stare. It took a moment before Mikoto realized she was talking about Hana's training, which left her less confused but not less peeved. Tsume had always annoyed her. She was uninhibited, uncouth, and...unquestionably in charge, the only female clan head in Konoha. Maybe she was just a touch jealous. A touch.

The principal strode in exactly on the hour, and the assistant teachers politely shooed everyone into their seats. She extended her senses around her, searching for more hostile feelings, as the principal got his papers in order. Luckily, the most blatant of these were all civilians, and they had less say in village affairs. If one of the large clans had lent their support, Naruto might have been in real trouble. The principal cleared his throat, and the whispering hushed. He was a roundish man in early middle age, and still wore his hitai-ate. She couldn't help but notice that the hands that gripped the podium had only seven full fingers, preventing him from ever forming handsigns. He must have chosen to become an administrator instead of retiring. "I've called this meeting at the request of several concerned parents," he said, sounding slightly bored. "We are here to discuss the potential danger a particular student, and I believe all of you know who I mean, may pose to his peers. At the end of this meeting both parents and teachers will vote whether they wish to keep him in the school, or remove him from the classroom and arrange for a private tutor. As moderator, I will not vote. Please wait for your chance to speak; I will call you to stand in the order I see you."

A tall woman with a very long braid promptly shot her hand up in the air, and was on her feet as soon as the principal acknowledged her. "This boy is dangerous. I know it and you know it, and I will _not_ stand for letting him run around loose where the other students are playing. If it was up to me, he'd be locked up for his own good and the good of Konoha. It's only a matter of time before something happens to set him off, and then what? If he hurts even one of our children, if he hurts _my daughter_," she paused, squaring her shoulders. "I may not be a ninja, but I can tell you the Hokage will have hell to pay. Dangerous weapons that can go off at any moment need to be shut up away from innocent people. It's as simple as that."

Several heads around the room began to nod. Mikoto took a deep breath and raised her hand. The principal's eyes alighted on her and she stood. She turned her head to address the civilian woman who had spoken. "Don't you trust the Yondaime?" she asked sweetly, her voice carrying an undercurrent of accusation to every corner of the room. "The danger is contained. He sacrificed his own life to be sure of that." She swept her eyes over the assembled people, noting who flinched away from her piercing gaze. It was almost all civilians. At least some of the ninja understood. "He had to make a terrible choice for one of our children. Life would be difficult for this helpless newborn baby—not only had he been orphaned, but he'd be given a responsibility so great I can barely imagine it. The Yondaime gave his life for this village, and in return he rightly expected the village to do for him what he could not. I'm sure it was his dying wish that we take this boy into our hearts, _all of us_, and step in in place of the father and mother that fate had denied this child. That we are here having this meeting is proof his faith in us seems to have been misplaced."

"As he is now, this boy is _not_ a danger. Some of you may have heard stories, from other hidden villages, how murderous these vessels can be. So I'll ask you this: if you were tossed out on your own, no family, no friends, and cursed, cheated, spat on, and beaten up for reasons your child's mind couldn't even begin to grasp, how would you react? What kind of person would you grow up to be?" Mikoto paused to let her audience's mind fill in the gaps. Some of the parents were outright squirming in their chairs. Good. "I understand that you're frightened for your children's safety, but if you really want to protect them, give this boy a _reason_ to protect them, and he will do it. Give him a home. An anchor. That's all he's ever asked you for."

She smoothed out her kimono and sat down, hands folded on her lap. From farther down her row, Nara Shikaku caught her eye and nodded once, almost imperceptibly. He must have been the father of that Nara boy in Sasuke's class. She didn't know him well, but he had been a close friend of Minato's, and his wife was one of the few mothers who had shown absolutely no animosity towards Naruto.

Not to be outdone (or shamed by an equally prestigious clan) Hyūga Hiashi stood next. "What was done was done, and there is no vengeance to be found here any longer. We could just as soon seek it against an earthquake or a typhoon, to as much purpose. But the _boy_ is wild. He needs discipline if he is to serve Konoha properly as a shinobi. There is no better place for him to learn this than the Academy."

Mikoto's brows creased in pleasant surprise. She didn't like the head of the Hyūga clan, but she wasn't going to turn away his support just because he was a pompous ass. She inclined her head in silent thanks. A civilian father took the floor next and repeated, with more venom, what the first woman had said. After him was a kunoichi with a toddler on her hip and the lines beneath her eyes that were the mark of a Sarutobi summoning master. Unsurprisingly, she argued in favor of keeping Naruto in the school. The debate went round and round for almost two hours, until the principal finally called a halt and took the vote by raised hands to allow Naruto's continued attendance. Mikoto had to force herself to breath while one by one more hands joined her own.

The margin was narrow, but her side was victorious. There was just one more thing left to worry about as she strolled home with the other Uchiha parents. She could only hope word of this meeting and her role in it would never reach Naruto. If he learned she'd voted against letting him cut class for the rest of his life, he might never forgive her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thoughts:**  
I am operating on the assumption that pre-massacre Sasuke was a sweetie pie, and not the Prince Egotistical Dickface we know and love (or hate) from current canon. There must have been a reason Itachi loved the little guy enough to piss off Danzō, right?

After this chapter the adorkableness of tiny!Naruto will be fading out as Mikoto starts to realize there is Something Going Down. Also, Kakashi shows up to insinuate things she won't be liking at all.

**Thank you to AuthorWithIssues for agreeing to be my beta reader. Your efforts are appreciated!**

* * *

The anti-Naruto faction did not accept their defeat gracefully, and passed their shame onto their children, the one outlet they had left. The bullying spiked, and Naruto was coming home with more and more bruises. The most the teachers contributed to the situation were a few halfhearted reprimands that stopped nothing. Mikoto couldn't pin a thing on the parents, and the police didn't become involved in schoolyard fights unless they necessitated a stay in the intensive care ward for one or more of the participants.

Naruto didn't seem to be taking the bloodied noses too badly, at least. If anything, the harassment was having the opposite of its intended effect. The more intense his opposition became, the more determined Naruto was to overcome it, seemingly out of pure contrariness. He'd never had any compunctions about not showing up to class before, but now he was appearing on the playground long before the bell rang, practically daring the other children to chase him away. The problem was that it was escalating with no end in sight, and she did not want to find out how far the Kyūbi's ability to heal him went. A bone broken, and not correctly set, could end his career as a shinobi before it had a proper beginning.

This continued for about a week and a half, until Sasuke neatly solved the problem for her.

There were certain things the citizens of Konoha had learned not to do. Like...how it was better not to swat small grayish beetles within a hundred paces of the Aburame neighborhood. Or how women didn't go into public bathhouses, without stuffing a washcloth or two in the cracks and knotholes of the dividing screen. And how nobody went out of their way to cross an Uchiha. It just wasn't _done_. It was true Sasuke was a small, adorable, seven year old Uchiha, but the basic principle still stood. He believed himself to be the only one allowed to beat up Naruto with impunity, and was extremely protective of this privilege. She learned exactly how protective when a neighbor's daughter, breathless from running all the way home from school, knocked on the door and told her the principal needed to see her. Immediately.

She changed out of her housedress, and strode to his office as quickly as her kimono would allow. Sasuke didn't get into fights at school, at least not the sort that would require her presence. The only person he seemed to enjoy punching was Naruto, and their understanding was such that the both of them were quite content to sit on the porch, and share popsicles, after beating each other black and blue. She was certain it wasn't one of their scuffles that was behind this call. The day a fellow student was disciplined for bullying the jinchūriki was the day the Kyūbi went paws-up for belly scratches from the Hokage. It seemed equally unlikely Sasuke would pick a fight with anyone else. He didn't have the temperament of a bully, and those in the school that did knew going after the son of the Chief of Police and Head of the Uchiha clan was veritable suicide.

Upon arriving, she asked directions to the principal's office from one of the students sweeping the hall. He directed her to the second floor with a deferential nod.

"You can go in, Uchiha-sama," his secretary murmured, when she appeared before the woman's desk. "Sasuke-kun is already with him."

She pushed down the door handle, and let herself inside. Sasuke was sitting on one of the plastic chairs next to the door, kicking his heels against the footrest, and looking utterly unrepentant about whatever infraction he'd committed. That was strange. Sasuke would do _anything_ to keep his father happy, and nothing made his father so happy as perfect discipline. Naruto occupied the chair on the opposite side. He was holding a bloody tissue to his nose, hunched over and breathing shallowly as if the motion pained him. Sasuke hadn't a scratch on him. The sole evidence of his supposed fight was a little dirt ground into his knees.

"Thank you for coming so quickly, Uchiha-sama," the principal said, rising to greet her from behind his battered steel desk. "I'm sure you're curious as to why."

"Sasuke has never given me a reason before," she said pointedly, looking over her shoulder at him.

"No, he hasn't," he said, settling himself behind the desk again. "Until today his behavior, and his marks, have been exemplary. Frankly, I was as surprised he got involved in a fight as you are…" He paused to remove his glasses, looking piercingly at Sasuke. "As you know, this is a military school, and supervised spars between students in the same grade are a daily part of their activities. What we do _not_ condone here is all-out brawling; especially not when several stronger students gang up on someone much weaker. Suspension is the usual punishment when this occurs."

"Oh bullsh—" Naruto piped up angrily.

The principal slammed his hand down on a pile of papers, cutting him off and making Mikoto start. "You'll speak when asked a question, and not before. And if you use that language with me again, I'll have you mopping the classroom floors with your _tongue_."

"As I was saying," he continued. "That is the usual punishment. Your son's case is rather...odd. Sasuke-kun_, _please explain to your mother what happened this afternoon. The truth, if you please."

Sasuke considered this for a moment, and then locked eyes with the principal without flinching. "No."

"Excuse me?" he said, dumbfounded.

"I can't. I tried already. You didn't want to listen to what really happened, only what you think happened. So I figured that means you want me to lie, and one thing I was taught to never do was lie to my mother." Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest in a blatant challenge.

"Sasuke!" she said sharply, for appearance's sake.

The man turned very red. Outmaneuvered by a seven-year-old. That _must_ be embarrassing.

A few words, if they were chosen carefully, were enough to upset the assumptions about who was powerful...and who was powerless. It was a lesson in which she'd excelled. _That's my son_, she thought, suppressing a smirk.

"Detention tomorrow for both of you, on top of whatever else I decide to hand out. Wait in the hall," he ordered, fuming. Both of them slipped down from their chairs, and filed out, Naruto trying not to let on that he was limping.

"I'm terribly sorry, Principal Satō," she said, her eyes on her clenched hands. "This is probably my fault. His father has been working such long hours lately, I'm afraid I've spoiled him. I'll try to be firmer."

Her mousy manner punctured his temper, and his posture immediately relaxed. "No, no, don't take it on yourself," he said soothingly. "It's a hard life we lead. I'm sure you've done your best with what you've been dealt. In any case...he was defending a comrade. I suppose I can't fault him for the sentiment."

"What _did_ happen this afternoon?" she asked.

"Uzumaki Naruto decided it would be a good idea to prank three fourth year students, by stealing their belts while they were in the gymnasium pool. Understandably, when they discovered the theft, they attempted to retrieve the stolen property. When Naruto wouldn't relinquish them, they attempted to recover the items with force. It was at this point Sasuke-kun intervened. He conspired with Naruto to lure the three boys into a deserted corner of the grounds, at which point...he apparently incapacitated all of them. One had to be taken to the hospital to be checked out for a concussion."

"I...see," she replied, her delicate eyebrows arching high. "Is he all right?"

"Yes, it was mild," he answered. "The medics are keeping him overnight only as a precaution."

"You had Naruto checked out too, I hope?" she asked, with the same expression of offhand concern. "It's been quite a while since first-response medical training for me, but it looked as if he was breathing like someone with a cracked rib."

"Of course I offered to have him taken to the hospital. What kind of heartless tyrant do you think I am? He absolutely refused, and my staff have better things to do than chase him down and drag him there bodily. Besides," he said uncomfortably. "He looked all right to me."

Mikoto kept the bland look fixed on her face. Of all the stupid, lazy...Of course he didn't want to go to the hospital. What six-year-old-would? He may be living on his own, but he certainly didn't have the maturity or knowledge to be making his own medical decisions. She was really starting to question the Hokage's wisdom in letting the boy loose on his own. Shinobi children grew up fast, but this was pushing it, even in a hidden village.

"I gave out a day's in-school suspension for the older boys, for attempting to take matters into their own hands in regards to the theft," the principal said, hastily changing the subject. "Getting beaten up by a first-year student was almost punishment enough. Three for Sasuke and Naruto, for stealing in the first place, and attacking fellow students outside of a sanctioned spar."

"Whatever you think is fair, Principal Satō," she said deferentially. She wasn't wasting any more time on this fool. Naruto needed medical attention before he did something rambunctiously stupid, and punctured an internal organ. "His father will ensure it doesn't happen again."

"Ah, well, thank you for your time, Uchiha-sama," he said, with forced geniality. "I'm sure your husband takes the discipline of his children very seriously." He seemed only peripherally aware he'd come out of this discussion missing a large chunk of his dignity. Idiot. He rose to see her out, fixing an ill-tempered glare on Naruto, before shutting the door.

She pulled both boys into a deserted classroom, and they both began talking at once. "Quiet, please!" she said sharply, over the conflicting babble. "I don't know exactly what happened, and at this moment I don't care. When one of your comrades is injured, excuses can wait. Naruto, lie down and show me where your chest hurts."

With some grumbling, he lay down on the tiles, his head pillowed on his book bag. "Down here, on that side," he said, hiking up his shirt, and pointing to the beginning of a sickly red-purple bruise. She knelt and probed the area gently with her fingers, making him hiss in pain. Probably two ribs cracked, at least. The injury wasn't serious as long as it wasn't exacerbated. Unfortunately, Naruto seemed to take pain as a challenge rather than a warning, and 'exacerbating' was probably the next thing on his agenda. She wasn't sure she had the influence over him to convince him to go to the hospital without a tantrum, and the absolute last thing she needed was for him to go tearing off by himself. That meant the next best thing.

She formed the signs for the shōsen jutsu, holding her hands over the bruise as they began to glow softly green. The shōsen worked by providing the cells in the patient's body with the energy to divide much more quickly than normal. It was not without its risks; it was all too easy to overload and destroy the tissue, or force too much of the user's chakra into their patient's pathways and knock them unconscious. Anything more complex than healing clean cuts and uncomplicated fractures was beyond her, but that was enough for a first-response medic, and enough here.

"Wow, Mom...I didn't know you could use healing chakra," Sasuke commented, sounding impressed. "Yuji-ojisan's told me stories about when you used to be a shinobi, but—"

"Questions later," she said firmly. "I'm not a medical specialist, and I really need to concentrate."

Sasuke sat back on his heels to watch her work, intermittently glaring at Naruto whenever he was about to open his mouth. Knitting the bones didn't take long; his body seemed inordinately responsive to the influx of healing chakra. Just like Kushina's had been, now that she remembered. It was a good thing Naruto had been her first medical patch job in the better part of six years. The training with Team Two had resharpened her control, but what a good shōsen jutsu required was on a whole other level. She was positive she overloaded it, although her patient seemed totally oblivious to its soporific side effects. His chakra system must be used to an incredibly heavy load. "Better?" she asked, when Naruto had sat up, and gingerly prodded his ribs. It would take a few days to heal completely, but the process was far enough along that he wouldn't be able to complicate the injury.

"Way better," he said, after a few deep breaths. "Principal Satō is a _jerk_! He should've given Sasuke a medal, not a suspension. Please don't ground him!"

"All right..._now _I want to hear your side of the story, Sasuke," she said, and added in a gentler voice, "If you're really truthful with me, and attacked those boys purely to defend Naruto, I will put in the best possible words with your father."

He let out a deep breath, and began to explain, Naruto inserting frequent commentary. The three older boys had, unsurprisingly, lied to the teachers about Naruto stealing their possessions. In reality, he'd been eating a snack in the shade of some training equipment on the far side of the lot, away from his classmates. They'd come shouting about 'catching the thief' as they burst out of the doors of the gymnasium only to give themselves an excuse. Sasuke knew those three were trouble, and had followed at a discreet distance. The two of them had already worked out a strategy for dealing with the bullies. If Naruto couldn't handle it himself, he'd shout out a code word to Sasuke, and try to lure his attackers away from their reinforcements. Sasuke would then be lying in wait at the predetermined spot to distract them, giving Naruto the chance to escape. This time, Naruto hadn't been fast enough, twisting his ankle in an attempt to avoid their blunt practice kunai. One of the boys had landed a bone-cracking kick when he was already on the ground. Incensed, Sasuke had attacked them head on, instead of merely acting as a distraction. The older boys had grossly underestimated how good his taijutsu was for being only seven, and in those moments of confusion he'd managed to overcome them.

Mikoto was impressed. Not only at his combat skills, which were gaining on his brother's at that age, but that he was willing to take on three much stronger opponents for someone that wasn't even of his clan. The Uchiha tended to keep to themselves, the altruistic impulses that defined the allies of the Senju manifesting only rarely. They were simply taught such a thing was a sign of weakness, and almost all of them learned to discount such thoughts as unbecoming of an Uchiha. Her lovable nitwit nephew Obito (who'd held the unenviable position of designated family screwup) had failed to learn that lesson like he'd failed to learn a lot of others. Sakumo had eventually beaten it out of Mikoto, too, although it had taken most of her first year as a genin. She was glad Sasuke had someone like Naruto as his teacher.

She ushered the boys home, and set them to work on their assignments, as if today was a day like any other. She did have to tell Fugaku eventually, who was predictably angry, but her florid descriptions of Sasuke's victory over the older students put her husband in a more charitable mood. He handed out extra training, and grounded Sasuke for the next week, but didn't even mention caning him. Fugaku even slotted in some sideways praise of his younger son, in between the lectures about not disrespecting one's superiors. It was subtle, but Sasuke could sniff out his father's approval like a bloodhound on the track. No boy who'd just been grounded had ever looked so cheerful.

The other side couldn't hold a candle to Naruto's stubborn determination, and now that there were rumors a second Uchiha prodigy was ready to blacken the eyes of anyone who looked at him funny, the bullies scuttled back into the woodwork. Most of his classmates still treated Naruto like a pariah, and the teachers were almost as bad, but there was nothing more she could do about that at present. It was a victory, if a small one, and she had very little time to spare.

Her ersatz genin team was counting down the days until they had to embark for Iwagakure, and she was determined to wring as much excellence out of them as she could. Although half of her didn't want the training to end, Mikoto breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief, when she bid Team Two good luck at the gates. One of the other jōnin would be escorting them, along with his own team. Ishimaru had recently been released from the hospital, and would be retaking leadership as soon as they returned from the exams. Mikoto would then be stepping meekly back into retirement. The young shinobi had as many new tricks up their sleeves as she could cram in within a month, and it was out of her hands now.

After they had gone, she found she had missed teaching so much that going back home was like a prison sentence. The amount of work it took was draining, but she was seriously considering applying for a part-time position at the Academy, whether or not Fugaku was enthusiastic about it. She imagined the turnover to be fairly high, and with her social connections, and mission record, she doubted they'd turn her away. While she had the experience, what she was missing was the piece of paper to make it official. A week after Team Two returned to Konoha (none passed the mission simulation, but came back whole, and in fairly good spirits), she decided to corner Umino Iruka and see how much of a pain a teaching certification would be to secure, since he must have just gotten his this year.

Now that she was less worried about Naruto being jumped after school, the boys usually made their own way home. This time it made sense to pick them up after that chat with Iruka, and afterwards perhaps stop by that restaurant Sasuke liked so much. The after-school training regimen his father assigned him as punishment had been grueling. Some onigiri were just the thing to soothe a mother's guilty conscience.

-ooo-

Mikoto knew immediately something was wrong when a small blond projectile didn't come screaming towards her when she stepped into the schoolyard. Sasuke was playing with two Uchiha boys a couple years ahead of him, and he waved at her upside-down from his perch on the monkey bars. But where was Naruto?

A quick scan for his vibrant chakra signature revealed him to be curled up in the shade of the school wall around the corner. His arms were folded over his belly, and he looked distressingly pale. He smiled wanly when she knelt down next to him. "Are you feeling all right?" she asked, pressing her hand experimentally to his forehead and cheeks. He was very warm.

"My stomach really hurts," he whispered. "Iruka-sensei took me to the nurse, after I threw up on his shoes, but she kicked me out when the last bell rang."

"Did you have something funny to eat last night?" she asked. "I don't think there's a stomach bug going around."

"Buncha ramen cups, what I have all the time," he answered, and screwed up his face at a particularly sharp cramp in his gut. "But I had the rest of yesterday's bento for breakfast. I found it in my locker. Uh...at least I think it was yesterday's."

Mikoto pinched the bridge of her nose. Poor, stupid kid. That would certainly explain it. "I guess no one ever told you this, but you can't eat food with meat in it that's been sitting in a warm place for a long time."

He grimaced. "But it tasted okay..."

"That doesn't matter. Germs that can make you really sick grow fast in warm places, and you can't always taste it if that happens."

"Oh. I thought food was only bad if it started getting fuzzy, but I can cut it off usually..."

Mikoto sighed. It might have been a little funny, if he hadn't looked so miserable, and real hunger hadn't been the driving force behind his peculiar behavior. Given how little his landlady fed him, and how small his allowance probably was, it was a miracle he hadn't been picking through dumpsters to satisfy his enormous appetite. Or maybe he had been. Mikoto honestly didn't want to know how low his definition of edible went.

"Uchiha-sama?" a man called from behind her. She stood to see Umino Iruka jogging towards her, looking anxious. "I'm really sorry to bother you about this, but, honestly, I couldn't think of anyone else who'd help. I'd understand if it's not possible, but...would you be willing to let Naruto-kun stay with you for a couple of days? You probably noticed, but I think he's coming down with something."

He looked genuinely concerned. That was new. Until recently, he'd ignored Naruto as stolidly as the other instructors. "Of course," she said without hesitation.

"Thanks so much," he said, surprised she'd agreed with no reservations. "From what he's told me about her, I don't trust his landlady to check on him, and he's not nearly sick enough that I'd feel comfortable bothering the hospital staff."

"'M sorry about your sandals, Iruka-sensei," Naruto mumbled.

Iruka gave him a strained smile. "Oh, that's okay. I know you couldn't help it. Suzume-sensei said it happens to every teacher eventually." He extended a hand to help Naruto up. "Think you can make it to the Uchiha district? She's doing you a very big favor," he prompted.

"Oh, right. Thanks, Mikoto-obachan. You're nice," he said, and then added, "Sasuke's really lucky he's got a mom like you."

She smiled outwardly at the compliment, but inside felt a pang of grief. _I wish you did too, Naruto._

"Since I'm guessing he'll be out for a few days, I have all of his books and things in the office," Iruka said. "I'll show you the assignments, if you don't mind following me..."

She was about to ask Iruka to simply bring them out here, but he looked suspiciously like he wanted to speak with her alone. She was curious about the sudden reversal in his demeanor, and obediently followed. The teaching certification could wait.

'The office' was a mess of papers and grade books clearly belonging to several teachers; he wouldn't have enough seniority to merit his own desk quite yet. Nonchalantly, he closed the door behind him, and began riffling through the piles of books.

"That was considerate of you, to see if I could look after him," she said. "One of the other teachers would have left him to fend for himself."

He winced a little. "I've been thinking about what you said at the meeting. About giving him an anchor. It was something I wished I had when I was younger."

"What do you mean?" she asked, curious.

"My parents," he said, pausing with a handful of papers in his fist. "They were killed by the Kyūbi. I was ten. My uncle took me in, but he thought I was a weakling that would never make it past genin. Every day I was living in his house, I wished for someone to believe in me, the way my mother and father did."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I lost family too. My mother, and my two older brothers. I know how much it hurts."

He nodded. "I visited the memorial stone almost every day, back then. I would read the names over, and over, and over...and I still remember how many of them started with 'Uchiha'. It really made me think about what I was doing. Naruto-kun was the last orphan the Kyūbi made, and I know what happened...it's not his fault. If you could find it in your heart to be kind to him, why couldn't I? More than any of the other teachers, I understand what he's going through."

"Thank you," she said, deeply grateful. "It would mean a lot to him, not to mention me, to know that he'll have at least one ally here."

"I'm pretty much the bottom rung on the ladder, but I'll do my best." He cleared his throat, and held out the books and a folder of papers. "I know you'll want to get going, so..."

"Iruka-sensei?" she said, balancing the books against her hip.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"You're a very kind person. Don't ever confuse that with weakness. They're very different things."

He grinned, looking embarrassed, and pushed open the office door for her. Once outside, she called out to Sasuke to let him know they were leaving, and began the fifteen minute walk to the Uchiha district. Naruto clung to her hand, but didn't utter a word of complaint about his stomachache. Sasuke latched on to the opportunity to tease the normally energetic "loser" for being so slow, even after Mikoto snapped at him to knock it off. He was the more naturally talented of the two of them, but it irked him he could never keep up with his friend's sheer stamina. He even lost a few sparring matches this way, when Naruto kept on getting up until Sasuke was too tired and frustrated to hit him anymore.

When they were half a block from home, Naruto moaned aloud, and doubled over in pain. Sasuke suddenly looked sorry he'd teased Naruto practically the whole way, although he was still too proud to apologize aloud. Naruto was a little big for this, but still Mikoto scooped up the sick boy, and carried him all the way to the mansion's guest bedroom, shoes and all. Sasuke opened the doors for her without being asked.

"Is he going to be okay?" her son asked, apprehensively peering around her waist as she laid Naruto down on the narrow bed.

"Of course he will. He's going to feel awful for the next few days, but I don't think it's serious," she said. An idea occurred to her. "Hey, you know what would be a big help? Before dinner, can you run over to his apartment, and get some changes of clothes and his toothbrush? And any of his toys you think might make him feel better?"

"Sure," Sasuke said.

Naruto dug around under his shirt for the string that held his house key, and handed it to Sasuke. "Don't steal any of my stuff."

"Like I would," he replied, and stuck out his tongue before trotting off.

"Hey, Sasuke," he called down the hall. "Thanks."

Mikoto smiled at this unexpected display of manners. While Naruto undressed, and changed into a spare set of Sasuke's nightclothes, Mikoto set him up with a glass of water, a basin, plenty of blankets, and instructions to give her a shout if he needed anything. On a whim, she added a light kiss on his forehead before turning off the light.

She'd need to explain the extra pair of shoes she was about to toss in the foyer to Fugaku, and he wouldn't like that they belonged to Uzumaki Naruto. She planned to tell him the truth, but it didn't have to be the whole truth. She only needed to mention she was caring for an ill child who didn't have anywhere else to go. There were enough of those not to arouse suspicion; it could be difficult to support a family on lower-chūnin-level pay, and both parents might be out on missions to make ends meet. Also that Fugaku probably shouldn't be poking around in the guest room, because there was a small chance the kid was contagious. That was enough in line with his notion of her as wife and mother, and he didn't have much interest in her womanly sphere as long as dinner appeared on the table, and clean uniforms appeared in his closet.

Sasuke returned after a short while with an armful of clothes, a toothbrush, and a plush frog, which he deposited on Naruto's bed. She set him to work on some math problems while she tidied up the house. Fugaku was at a meeting of the Clan Council, which turned out to be rather convenient, although it was strange they weren't holding it here. Customarily, such meetings would take place in the Clan Head's house.

Although he was absolutely miserable, Naruto hadn't called out to her once so far that night. He must have been accustomed to suffering through illness alone. After dinner, she couldn't just go about her usual round of housework. After Sasuke had finished his assignments, and gone to bed, she filled a small bowl with water, and grabbed a washcloth from the master bath.

Naruto was awake when she slid open the door, curled up around the pains in his belly, and shivering with fever. "How are you holding up?" she asked, brushing some clumps of damp hair away from his face.

"Hurts everywhere," he answered wretchedly. "But my stomach hurts worst." He uncurled a little bit, and looked up at her with wide, frightened eyes. "I think I might be dying."

She set the water down on the nightstand, wrung out the washcloth, and began dabbing it against his hot skin. "You are absolutely not dying," she assured him. "You might feel like it, but you're not. The first day is always the worst, when you get sick from bad food. You'll feel a little better tomorrow, and even better the day after that."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"I'm a mom; we know about this stuff," she answered playfully. "But I can stay here with you for a while, just in case."

The worry teasing up his eyebrows melted away at her reassurance. "That makes my head feel better," he whispered. "Can you do it more?"

"As long as you want," she said.

Mikoto ended up sitting up with him for hours, reading a chapter or two from one of Sasuke's adventure novels in between the dashes to the bathroom. It was almost two in the morning when she finally sensed her husband coming down the street, and snuck off to change into her nightgown and greet him. She'd be fuzzy-headed tomorrow, but she'd completed A-Rank missions on less sleep. She'd be able to manage breakfast.

Mikoto padded into the kitchen with an empty water glass, her hair carefully mussed, as though she'd been in bed for hours. "Late night again?" she asked, as Fugaku pulled off his sandals, his back to her. He reeked of cigarettes. She narrowed her eyes, and activated her sharingan for a moment, although she was pretty sure of what she'd find. His chakra was pulsing unevenly, in a fashion that indicated he was either under a genjutsu or very drunk. Since the first was out of the question, she settled on the second, however unlike him it was. In the fourteen years they'd been married, he'd only drank as heavily as he had been in the last few weeks when it looked like Konoha was going to have to surrender to Iwa. It was plain he was under an enormous amount of stress, and since he apparently felt he couldn't unburden himself to her, he'd gone looking for comfort at the bottom of a sake bottle.

"Hn," he grunted, standing with some effort. "We have a guest."

She was hoping he was too inebriated to notice the shoes this soon, but luck wasn't with her. "One of Sasuke's school friends is ill, and his parents couldn't take care of him. I volunteered to look after him for a couple of days."

A strange, calculating look passed over her husband's face, who didn't have the presence of mind to hide it. "That was kind of you," he said, slurring his words ever so slightly. "Who's it? The Uzumaki boy?"

She covered her flinch behind a yawn. It had never been a secret, but she didn't want it to be on the forefront of his mind, either. Perhaps she had relied too much on his willful ignorance of Sasuke's life, and her domestic sphere. She had expected him to be angry, and had prepared herself to counter it. Whatever he was, it wasn't angry. Satisfied would have been closer. Or triumphant.

"You don't mind?" she asked.

"Why'd I mind?" he said. "The village takes care of its own."

"Of course, but..."

"He's fond of you, and Sasuke?"

"Yes. I suppose," she answered, bewildered at the track the conversation was taking.

"Good. I'm sure the boy has few enough people that treat him well. Let'm know he's always welcome in my house," Fugaku said, and brushed past her on the way to their bedroom.

Belatedly, Mikoto remembered the glass she'd wandered into the kitchen to fill. She set it below the tap, and looked out the window towards the darkened street. Fugaku was not a kind man, and never fed her sweet lies to spare her own feelings. He had despised Kushina, and offered no more than grudging respect to Minato. A hatred of the Kyūbi was one of the few things, until recently, they had held in common. He had little enough attention to spare for his own youngest son, never mind one of the boy's friends.

She was not sure of the root of his interest in Naruto, but she _was _sure it would end up doing him no good.

-ooo-

Thankfully, the child in question made no appearance the next morning, and Fugaku was in too foul a mood from last night's drinking to go looking for him before work. Sasuke sidled around his father's scowl, and made a break for it as soon as Mikoto handed him his lunch. She put together a generous pot of coffee, and then made herself scarce until the front door slammed.

Naruto wasn't in his bed when she poked her head into the guest room after everyone else had left. She did find him asleep on the adjacent bathroom's tile, which was rather a mess. "That's no place to be napping," she said gently, and lifted him into her arms—cleaning up could wait until he was back in bed. He was short for his age, and still awfully thin, even with her supplemental meals.

Sleepily, he nuzzled against her neck and yawned. "Is it morning?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Do I have to get up?"

"Not if your stomach is still upset."

She felt him nod. "I'm never eating anything ever again," he moaned.

She chuckled. "You'll feel better soon, I promise. I'll make you some ginger tea later; that might help."

"Mikoto-obachan?" he whispered, and brought his arms up to encircle her neck. "I wish you were my mom."

Mikoto was silent for a long time, not trusting the strength of her voice. "I knew your mother," she said finally. "Let's get you back into bed, and I'll tell you about her." She carried him into the other room, tucked the blankets around his shoulders, and searched for a place to begin.

"Her name was Uzumaki Kushina. She was from Uzushiogakure, but had to leave her home when it was destroyed in the third war. Uzushio and Konoha had always been friends, and so the people of Konoha opened their gates to the refugees, and let them make a new home in our village. Kushina's parents were killed before she could remember anything about them, like yours. All she knew was that they were very brave shinobi," Mikoto paused and smiled. "Like yours."

"Really?" Naruto said, coming fully awake.

"Mmm. Kushina and I were in the same class at the Academy. The first day of school she announced she was going to be the first girl kage ever, and she _never_ kept quiet about it. Because she wasn't from Konoha, some of the kids teased her for having an accent, and bringing weird things to eat for lunch. She spent so much time in the principal's office for getting into fights, she hardly got any studying done, and she was at the bottom of the class every time report cards came out. My parents were very strict, and I spent most of my time training when I was little, so I was always at the top. I thought she was crazy, and tried to ignore her.

"Somehow she did graduate on time, though, and we were put on the same genin team. Usually the students are grouped together depending on how well their skills fit, but it's also traditional to put the best and the worst students on the same team to try to balance it out. At the time, I thought it was horrible, and wanted to switch for another sensei. Kushina was really loud, and short-tempered, and never stopped moving—"

"Like me!" he interrupted.

"Just like you," she agreed.

"And she loved playing jokes on people. She was terrible about trying to prank our jōnin instructor, just to get a rise out of him. He was a very skilled ninja, and he hardly ever fell for them. Even the few times he did, he never got angry at her. She did it to me, too, but I wasn't nearly as patient as he was, and after a while I started trying to get her back. I was the genjutsu specialist—which is _really _good for messing with people without getting yourself in trouble, by the way. Once I convinced her she was a cat for almost an entire D-rank babysitting mission. The next week she put food coloring in my water bottle, so my tongue was bright blue when it was my turn to deliver the oral mission report. It went downhill from there, since pretty soon we figured out that between Kushina's crazy ideas, and my genjutsu skills, we were unstoppable. And not just for messing with our teacher, either. We went on a lot of missions together, while we were genin and then chūnin. We looked out for each other, and after a while we figured out we'd become best friends...even though we argued with each other all the time. Eventually, I was promoted to jōnin and she wasn't, but she didn't mind. She wasn't the sort of person that got jealous of other people's good luck."

"When we were seventeen, she was kidnapped. She had a...very special kind of chakra, and someone from another village wanted to use it for themselves. I wanted to go rescue her myself, but I'd broken three fingers on my last mission, and couldn't make handsigns. Another jōnin was picked to lead the mission instead. He was a really amazing shinobi, better than me, although I wouldn't have been caught dead admitting it at the time. He was the only one to pick up your mother's trail, and he killed the men who took her and brought her home. A little while after that, they started dating. Kushina could be kind of mean to her boyfriends, but this one stuck with her." Mikoto leaned in closer. "It helped that he was too fast for her to punch him that hard."

Naruto giggled, which unfortunately dissolved into a fit of coughing. She was about to reach for the basin when he pushed her hands away. "'M okay," he said. "My throat just hurts. Keep going?"

"Alright," she said, while he settled back against the pillows. "Some of the boys in our class that used to tease her for being a tomboy were regretting it, because she grew up to be very beautiful. Her boyfriend was the first person to tell her that, after he saved her from the kidnappers...maybe that was when they fell in love. He was a good person, very calm, smart, and generous. I was very happy for her. After dating a few years, they got married. Living with him made Kushina a better person, too. She became more patient, and didn't get angry so much or so quickly. A few years after that, Kushina found out she was pregnant with you. She retired from being a shinobi, so nothing would hurt you while you were growing inside her. She was really excited about becoming a mother—she loved you even before she met you. I had gotten married before her, and I was pregnant with Sasuke at the same time. She wanted you two to be as good friends as we were."

Mikoto lapsed into a brief silence. The story was much too short. Naruto didn't deserve it to end there, but end it had. She breathed deeply to steady herself. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but...that's all there is. The night you were born was the night the Kyūbi attacked Konoha. Your mother and father were killed trying to protect you, and all the other children who couldn't protect themselves."

"I know," he said, subdued. "It's why I don't have a real birthday. Everybody around me is thinking about the people they loved that died." He nestled further under the sheets. "You never told me what she looks like."

"Well..." she said. "I don't have to tell you. I can do better. I'll be right back."

She went to the sunroom, and pulled the picture frame out from behind an overgrown philodendron, dusting it off as she walked back to his bed. It was her official team portrait. The three of them were arrayed in front of lanky Sakumo-sensei, on his face the sad half-smile that never grew into the real thing. Sakumo, Daishiro and herself had all posed themselves with the dignity befitting a shinobi. Kushina was flashing the victory sign with both hands, and grinning like a psycho.

Wordlessly, she handed Naruto the picture. He sat up, and took it in both hands, as if it might disappear unless he held on tight. He touched her face with the tip of his thumb, and the first of his tears she had ever seen began rolling down his cheeks. She put her arm around his back and let him cry.

"I'm not sad," he said, when the sniffling abated, and he'd scrubbed his face dry on his shirt. "I'm crying because I'm happy. Here," he said, and handed it back.

Mikoto gently pushed the photograph against his chest, and pulled his hand over it. "I have the negatives. Keep it."


	6. Chapter 6

**Thoughts:**  
I wanted to make Mikoto really skilled, but not...unbelievably Mary-Sue levels of skilled. Her genjutsu is as good as Itachi's at this point, although the rest of her repertoire isn't up to that level. Let me know if you think what she does to Kakashi is realistic. Also, since several people have asked, Chapter 8 will have Mikoto calling Itachi out on his Agonizingly Noble Self Sacrificing Lone Wolf crap, and proposing a REAL solution to the problem. Chapter 7 exists mostly to have Naruto and Itachi meet, and for Naruto to point out that he totally looks like a girl.

**Other Thoughts:**  
Weekly updates continue. They will continue continuing unless I drop dead or something. Huge-mongous gaps between chapters really annoy me, since I tend to read epic fic, and with a year between updates I completely lose the thread of the plot. *angryface*

**Thank you to AuthorWithIssues for agreeing to be my beta reader. Your efforts are appreciated!**

* * *

Almost three weeks after Itachi disappeared, a raven came tapping at the window with a scroll tied to its back. Mikoto put down her paintbrush to let the creature in, feeling like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It wasn't a very well known fact, but quite a few of the Uchiha, particularly the genjutsu specialists, were consummate artists. Painting practiced visual recall, and was as critical in their development as time on the training fields. For Mikoto, it was also a release. Every day that crawled by without word from Itachi weighed her down that much more. Her vivid imagination painted him bleeding to death alone in some godforsaken tidal swamp, while outwardly she wore an encouraging smile for Sasuke, and reassured him every day that his brother was just fine.

While most Konoha shinobi preferred hawks as messengers, the Uchiha traditionally used ravens. They didn't have a hawk's swiftness, or natural defenses, but they were far more intelligent and versatile, able to eat just about anything and survive just about anywhere. This one hopped onto her wrist, clacking its beak, while she extracted the paper from the waterproof pouch. The flap was pasted shut with a seal tag written in blood, and probably keyed to Fugaku alone, but there was another scrap of paper wrapped around it that had been cut from the longer scroll—a message to Sasuke. She read it over, and folded it up to give to him, once he got home from the neighborhood park. Itachi was setting out for home, and would be back by sundown tomorrow. His brother would be ecstatic. She went to the kitchen to put together a bowl of scraps for the bird, and set it out on the porch; it would return to the clan aviary when it had eaten.

The scroll she slipped in her apron pocket, and went to find her husband. He was in his study, doing paperwork at a low writing desk. He narrowed his eyes at her interruption. "A message from Itachi," she said, kneeling, and handing the scroll to him. "He'll be coming home tomorrow night."

He accepted it from her with a grunt of thanks, placed it beside a pile of papers, and picked up his pen again. Still with the secrets. She felt anger trickling into her chest. Clan business ought to be her business, especially when it involved sending her eldest son on a very probably unauthorized, solo mission to hostile territory. But she knew better than to argue with him. There were other ways. She got to her feet, and shut the door behind her, without uttering another word.

The next afternoon, Sasuke sprinted home from school, and arrived at the front door puffing out clouds of vapor. "Is Itachi here yet?" he asked, hanging on the doorframe.

"Not yet," Mikoto answered, over the cheerful bubbling of her stock pot. He hadn't taken his shoes off. "Why don't you come inside?"

"Nah, I'm going to wait for him at the gate," her son answered, tossed his bookbag in the foyer, and took off back in the direction he had come.

Mikoto finished her dinner preparations as the sun slipped lower and lower in the sky, with no appearance by Itachi. She poured a thermos of tea, pulled a light jacket on over her housedress, and tossed Sasuke's jacket over her arm. The air was wintry enough to make her shiver even with its protection. Sasuke was curled up next to the break in the house's wall, his eyes fixed on some point farther down the street. She laid the jacket over his shoulders, and sat down on the gravel next to him.

"Oh...thanks, Mom," he said, working his arms into the sleeves, and then wiping his nose on one. Mikoto was about to scold him for mistaking a clean jacket for a tissue, but swallowed it back. It wasn't the time. "There's tea, too," she said, and pushed the thermos in his direction. She put on her hood, and pulled her fingers into her sleeves. He'd been out here for hours in nothing more than a sweater. He must have been freezing, but, aside from a sigh of relief as he wrapped his fingers around the heat from the thermos, he didn't whine. She sat with him in silence, waiting.

The narrow streets of the Uchiha district had been dyed ruddy gold by the setting sun when Itachi finally rounded the corner. Sasuke leapt to his feet, and dashed to tackle him. His elder brother was muddy from the road, and looked dead tired, his eyes shadowed even more heavily than usual. He accepted Sasuke's enthusiastic hug without complaint, but didn't move to return it, either.

She caught his eyes and smiled, welcoming him home more sedately than Sasuke, but with the same affection. Itachi looked away, and Mikoto felt something around him come loose. Nothing in his stance or expression changed, but the cloak around his chakra slipped for the briefest of moments. She felt a flash of searing anguish that caught her breath in her throat. It disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"Are you all right?" she asked, stepping closer.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he asked mildly.

Sasuke laughed, and poked him in the side. "Of course he is. Nobody can touch my big brother. Now come on, I'm hungry! Mom made all the stuff you like, and I got you some dango on the way home from school. They might be sort of squashed now, but I think they're still good." He took Itachi's sleeve in his fingers, and pulled him down the path, oblivious to what she had felt. Mikoto collected the empty thermos, and followed behind, more troubled than ever. She set dinner on the table while Itachi was in the shower, and sent Sasuke to fetch his father.

"Report cards are coming out soon," Sasuke said, when they'd all sat down. "I'm going to beat Aburame Shino for first place. He's pretty good..." He stopped to smirk. "...but I'm better."

"If report cards haven't come out yet, how do you know you placed first?" Itachi asked. "The Aburame are a talented clan."

Sasuke grinned at him. "Naruto snuck a look at the grade books while I covered for him. Iruka-sensei is new, and he doesn't put a seal on the desk drawer like Mizuki-sensei_, _and so Naruto can pick the lock whenever he wants_. _Don't worry; I didn't let him change anything._"_

Mikoto found this rather funny, and hid a giggle behind her napkin, but Itachi's face darkened.

"What?" Sasuke said defensively. "I didn't. And Iruka-sensei is supposed to be a chūnin. If he can't keep mission info secret from enemy shinobi, he deserves whatever he gets."

"You're friends with Uzumaki Naruto?" Itachi asked sharply.

Sasuke looked confused, and a little hurt, at the interrogation. "Yeah, I guess. He can be pretty stupid sometimes, but he's the only one in my grade that isn't afraid to spar with me. We train together after school a lot. You never met him because you've been gone so much."

"He's a bit of a troublemaker at school, it's true, but he usually behaves himself here," Mikoto said, springing in to smooth out this unexpected wrinkle. "I think you'd like him."

"Perhaps," Itachi said coldly, his eyes flickering to his father.

"The rumors about the boy's misbehavior are exaggerated," Fugaku said with finality. "Your mother almost considers him part of the family, and I would agree. He hasn't one of his own anymore, so why not the Uchiha?"

Itachi didn't answer him.

Try as she might, Mikoto couldn't warm the atmosphere around the table after that. What should have been a pleasant reunion was a meal eaten in the awkward silences between her and Sasuke's abortive attempts at conversation. Itachi barely ate anything from the feast she'd prepared for him, and excused himself soon after. Fugaku followed, looking annoyed. They disappeared into the garden, and, as the door shut, she heard Itachi almost snarl something that sounded like 'I thought you were going to leave him out of this'.

The thrumming of angry conversation cut off abruptly after that, in midsentence; one of them had activated a sound-suppression jutsu to bolster the scanty privacy offered by the old-fashioned screens. Mikoto left them, and went to attend to the dinner dishes. There would be no information to be gleaned by hovering at the door.

She went after the cookpots with a ferocity she couldn't display to the real object of her consternation. Fugaku shows the jinchūriki kindness when he has no reason to do so, a shinobi whose compassion was pressed out of him long ago, if any had existed at all. Itachi withdraws it when he has no reason to do so, even though his harsh words sting the person he cares for most in the world. Itachi was only sharp with Sasuke to spare him from some even greater pain or disappointment in the future. For whatever reason, he considered Naruto dangerous.

Did Itachi fear him, and what he represented, as much as she once did? He had been only seven when the Kyūbi attacked, and was barely even a genin. He had been evacuated to the mountains, along with the other children, and saw only the aftermath of the Kyūbi's attack. Unlike many of his unfortunate peers in the clan, his close family had survived the assault. It was possible that was the root of Itachi's odd comments, but Mikoto didn't think it was likely. Until very recently, he had been cordial with everyone, from a kage to a street sweeper to a common thug. It wasn't like him to take an irrational dislike to someone Sasuke was obviously fond of, much less allow his younger brother to see his true feelings. Neither did Itachi _hate_ the way almost all other shinobi did, even herself. It was rare, and usually short-lived, but she could recognize the burning taste for vengeance on the back of her tongue. She didn't enjoy killing in cold blood for its own sake, but the bloodlust for someone who had harmed one of your teammates...that, she understood. She was better than most of the Uchiha in this respect, but she'd been livid at Minato for being the one to kill the Kumo ninja who'd kidnapped Kushina all those years ago, as terribly unfair to him as it was. She had been so busy screeching at the poor young man, she'd all but forgotten why he set out in the first place, and that he'd returned her best friend quickly and in one piece.

She had never seen even a glimmer of that from Itachi, never seen him strike anyone in anger. If he could, he refrained from striking anyone at all, relying on genjutsu to disable his opponents without critically injuring them. He was not the type to seek out vengeance. And still something about Naruto's friendship with Sasuke disturbed him.

And...'leave him out of this_'. _Leave him out of _what_?

She was sure now. Fugaku was carefully taming a demon, with herself and Sasuke as the bait.

-ooo-

Mikoto kept Naruto out of the house as much as she could when her husband was around, although, with the weather getting colder, this wasn't always practical. She couldn't cut off contact with him completely; that might protect him from Fugaku for a while, but losing his ersatz mother and brother would break the little boy's heart. The good weather made one last visit to Konoha that weekend, thankfully. She packed up the boys, and a picnic lunch, for a visit to the public park a few blocks outside the unofficial boundaries of the Uchiha neighborhood.

She set up camp under a tree and, after the boys were fed, pulled one of her guilty pleasures out of the picnic bag. The details of the plot were absurd, written about a kunoichi by someone who obviously wasn't, but mostly she skipped over those. At least the (much more explicit) male equivalent of the series was written by a man who knew which end of a kunai to pick up, and was damn good at throwing them, too. So she skimmed over the clumsy tactics, and impossible jutsu, to the passionate embraces and tearful farewells. Romance was something she'd never experienced—it was probably why she found the awful novels so fascinating. Her marriage with Fugaku had been arranged, and neither party had been enthusiastic about it. He was seven years older, and already obsessed with his work at the police headquarters; he was more concerned about producing a male heir than the fun that could be had in the production itself. Her old teammate Daishiro had spoiled her for that sort of thing, but she couldn't call that romance either. They were too young and awkward, still too unsure in their own growing bodies to figure out how they were supposed to fit together. The furtive make-out sessions in dank caves or against tree trunks were always more panicked than passionate. It didn't help that Kushina had a bizarre knack for walking in on them as soon as Daishiro had gotten his pants too far down to pull up nonchalantly, and her shrieks invariably summoned Sakumo, thoroughly mortifying everyone involved.

So romance novels it was. She flipped to one of the less painful parts, half-watching the boys over the cover of the book. Sasuke was practicing the handsigns for some katon techniques he didn't yet have the focus to perform properly, and was puffing out little spurts of steamy air like a teakettle, much to Naruto's amusement. Itachi had succeeded in his first ninjutsu at five, but she wasn't going to tell Sasuke that. He got enough from the rest of the family. He did his best, and it was cruel to ask any more of him.

Naruto certainly wasn't helping. He would sidle behind Sasuke when his eyes were closed, and he was trying to draw on his chakra, then make faces at the back of his head, or pick his nose and try to wipe it on the clan emblem sewn to the back of Sasuke's shirt. He didn't have much luck, but he was Uzumaki Naruto and that meant he never gave up.

Sasuke growled and grabbed Naruto's hand after yet another attempt, squeezing hard on the sensitive point between his thumb and first finger. The blond boy squealed, as intended. "Will you cut that _OUT_!" Sasuke snapped.

"That hurts! Lemme go!" Naruto yelled.

"Only if you promise to go train on the other side of the swing set," Sasuke ordered.

"Ouchouchouch...promise."

Sasuke released him, sniffed, and went back to his practice.

Naruto shuffled over to his designated area, and began 'training', doing things with his fingers that only vaguely resembled the gestures Mikoto knew.

Sasuke glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, and crossed his arms over his chest. "You don't even know your handsigns? Don't you pay any attention in class at all?"

"Class is boring, and Mizuki-sensei doesn't care if I sleep unless I'm snoring real loud."

Sasuke snorted. "You're going to be the worst Hokage ever."

"You take that back," Naruto said, stiffening.

"Not until you figure out your handsigns. Seriously, how do you think you're going to learn any cool jutsu, without knowing the signs in the chain?"

Naruto didn't have a good answer for that, so he just glared, and tightened his fists. "Fine. If you're soooooo amazing, you do them all."

Sasuke raised his hands to his chest; and performed all twelve with perfect form and near-perfect fluidity, then went back to looking archly superior.

"Okay, I was just messing with you before. I know them inside out. Watch," he said, and started stumbling through, until Sasuke walked over to his side of the swing set, and stopped him after the fourth.

"No, no, for Monkey your right hand goes over your left," Sasuke corrected, demonstrating the proper form. "Do them with me." Naruto sniffed, like such a thing was entirely his idea, but resumed practicing with an eye on Sasuke's hands. "Yeah, Dog is left over right, Ram is left over right, this one is Dragon, Bird, Boar, Snake, Hare, Rat..._that's not a handsign!_"

Naruto dropped his hands out of the very, very rude gesture they'd been executing, and doubled over with laughter. Sasuke cuffed him on the back of the head. Naruto yelped, and rubbed at it. "Jerk," he snapped, straightening.

"Loser," Sasuke countered immediately.

"You know what, Sasuke? Your head looks like a duck's butt."

He smoothed down the unruly spikes self-consciously. "And your breath smells like a dumpster."

"Does _not_."

"Does too."

And then the tiny fists started to fly. Mikoto considered breaking it up, and then decided against it. Shinobi families usually took a very hands-off approach to such squabbles, provided there were no bladed weapons or assassination techniques involved. Sasuke was too fast for Naruto to land more than a glancing blow, and Naruto too durable for Sasuke to hurt him much even by accident. She'd grown up in a house with three brothers, and was conversationally fluent in the language of young boys. Those two had practically declared themselves best friends for life, and she wasn't about to split up their celebratory fisticuffs.

She blinked over the cover of her book, as the two boys disappeared over the gentle hill, and, from the sounds of it, lost their footing and tumbled to the bottom. There was nothing worse than a few weeds at the base. She tapped the pages against her lips, and counted to ten. Naruto volunteered some very naughty words that she'd probably have to scold out of Sasuke later, but there was no wailing. Still, she got to her feet to investigate just in case.

Naruto sprang up from the weed patch, dragging a dizzy-looking Sasuke behind him. "Awesome! Let's go again!"

"No way, you weirdo," Sasuke said crossly, and, as they crested the hill, he twisted his arm free. Naruto let him go, shrugged, and threw himself down the slope again.

Her son trudged over to the tree where she was standing, and flopped on his back. "Naruto is crazy," he announced.

"He just has a lot of energy," she said, dropping back to the ground. Secretly, she halfway agreed. It beggared belief how a child that intelligent managed to possess less common sense than a brain-damaged pigeon. A few days ago, he'd unraveled the seals on the teacher's block of lockers, and stowed a frog in every one. It was an undertaking so complex that the basics of fuinjutsu weren't even _taught_ in the Academy, and now he was voluntarily throwing himself down a hill for the second...no...wait...third time. Mikoto could only shake her head. "Juice?" she offered, holding out the bottle.

Sasuke sat up, pulled a few sticks out of his hair, and scooted back so he could lean against the trunk with her. He took a few swallows, and then set it aside, sighing heavily. "Why can't I do it?" he asked.

"It's not a race," she said. "Learning to focus chakra for the first time is something everyone has to figure out at their own pace." Mikoto winced at an especially loud screech from somewhere over the crest of the hill. "Usually it helps to do it someplace quiet."

"How old was Itachi?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does to Father."

Mikoto put her arm around Sasuke's shoulders in a rather empty reassurance. That was the trouble. It did. He was only proud of his younger son as an echo of the genius that had come before. Although Fugaku didn't mean to be so, it was incredibly cruel, measuring Sasuke by a standard he could never hope to match. Shinobi like Itachi came along once or twice in a generation, and Fugaku had pushed him mercilessly toward greatness almost since he could walk. Most children didn't succeed at their first ninjutsu until they were eight or nine, and if Sasuke succeeded at seven he would be called a genius by any other father in Konoha. "He only wants to see you do well, and become a strong shinobi," she said. It wasn't a lie, but not entirely the truth, either. "And I know you will. Why don't you try again? I'll do it with you."

"Okay," he said, and settled into the classic pose of meditation, one hand raised in a half-seal.

Mikoto put her book aside, and assumed it as well. "Your body moves in circles, and when you pay attention you can feel those circles. Feel your breath as it comes and goes." She waited a few moments for her son's breath to slow and steady. "Below your breath is your pulse. Tell me when you feel it."

Sasuke was quite for a few moments. "I feel it."

"Below the pulse of your veins is the pulse of your chakra. Tell me when you feel it."

Mikoto kept quiet, letting him search in peace. He had to be able to recognize the flow before he could divert it, and she had the feeling this was what he was stumbling over. Learning how to focus chakra for the first time was a skill that couldn't really be taught, only discovered within yourself. There were no shortcuts. A large component of it was silent meditation, to allow yourself to feel the circulation of chakra around the body, and eventually to alter the flow through a conscious application of will. Most young children didn't have the discipline, or the patience, to sit still for so long, but if Sasuke was determined to do so, she was going to give him all the help she could. She let her mind drift free, feeling the pulsing of her own well-ordered chakra, and the slightly chaotic warmth of the two boys'. Well, Sasuke's was warm. Naruto was more like a forest fire.

Suddenly, she sat up slightly straighter. She could feel a third chakra signature, very faintly, and it had the cold, keen edge of a seasoned assassin. And whoever they were, they were watching _her_.

Naruto chose that moment to barge into their meditation, breaking her concentration. "I'm so hungry I think I'm dying," he said, sitting down with a thump on her other side. His white t-shirt had turned uniformly dusty beige.

"Augh! We just had lunch!" Sasuke exclaimed. "Don't you do anything besides hit yourself on the head and eat?"

The thought of using genjutsu on first-year Academy students made her conscience squirm, but she needed them out of the way, while determining whether or not the mysterious watcher was a threat. Under the cover of replacing her book in the picnic bag, back to the watching shinobi, she formed the handsigns for a minor area illusion. It was a risk, since she didn't know his skill level, but she expanded the range to include him too. The sharingan could pierce visual illusions with ease, but she didn't know of any technique that could detect auditory genjutsu as easily. If the kids heard something he didn't, he might realize she was trying to get rid of them before confronting him.

"Aren't you lucky...I think I hear the ice cream cart," Mikoto said lightly. Their ears perked up as the genjutsu took hold, and the familiar tinkling of bells made their mouths water. She pulled a few ryo out of her pocket, and handed some to each boy. "Think you can catch it?"

"Yeah!" they yelled in unison, and sprinted away in the direction opposite the presence she felt. It didn't move.

Families with powerful dōjutsu, like hers, were occasionally the victims of kidnapping attempts, so even in her retirement Mikoto didn't go anywhere completely unarmed. Besides her store of copied ninjutsu, which was considerable, she kept a concealed holster of senbon strapped to her calf, the tips coated in a paralytic toxin. She couldn't see anyone in the trees or bushes surrounding the park, but the tickle of their chakra signature against her awareness was unmistakable. By mid-autumn the cover they provided wasn't that great, which meant she herself was under a visual genjutsu. Breaking it would alert the caster that they had a competent opponent on their hands. But she was an Uchiha. She didn't have to break it to see beneath it.

When she judged the boys far enough away, she faded her own illusion into nothingness, as if the cart had turned a corner. Under the concealment of her bangs and long lashes, she activated her sharingan. Three tomoe began to whirl around her newly crimson irises. Keeping her head tilted slightly down, she stretched out on the grass, scanning her surroundings.

There he was—at ten o'clock, crouched in the boughs of a large maple. The genjutsu was near perfect, and would have fooled a shinobi whose sensory abilities were below elite jōnin level. Only that whisper of his chakra signature gave him away. She could see the layers of shifting leaves and false sky like panes of painted glass, and below that the black cloak and porcelain mask of an ANBU operative. An ANBU operative. What in the hell did one of those want with her? It wasn't Itachi; although he wore a similar canine mask, what she could see of the man was too broad-shouldered and heavily muscled to be her son. There was no one else around, and the area didn't hold anything at all of strategic importance. He was focused too intently on her and the boys for him to be on simple guard duty.

Mikoto felt a surge of fear, and squelched it. The members of the Black Ops squads were under the direct command of the Hokage, and undertook the most dangerous of missions to protect Konoha. The only reason one would be tailing a private citizen was if the Hokage suspected them of treason. She had broken no laws, and had nothing to hide. If someone had suspicions of her loyalty to Konoha, they could say so to her face. And if they were here to do her or the boys harm...the toxin on her senbon was fast-acting and painful, but the pinprick amount delivered by one of the needles wasn't lethal to a healthy adult. She could stick them first, and deal with the resulting political fallout later.

She collected the used picnic dishes, and strolled over to the dumpster on the other side of the park, which was near enough to the ring of trees and bushes she could use them as cover. Her kage bunshin walked back to the blanket empty-handed, dusting sandwich crumbs from its fingers. The real Mikoto spun a complicated genjutsu around herself that hid the sight, sound, and scent of her approach, in addition to subtly pushing away the attention of watching eyes. She knotted up her dress to keep it out of the way, and leapt into the trees, choosing a sturdy branch whose shuddering leaves could be passed off as a gust of wind. Using chakra to stick her hands and feet to the largest trunks and branches, she advanced.

The ANBU didn't notice as she crept closer. Looks like she hadn't lost her touch. Her taijutsu had never been more than mediocre by Uchiha standards, but her genjutsu was nothing short of exquisite. More than once, she'd caught the clan elders lightly berating her mother for bearing a daughter with such genius instead of a son.

She was only a little bit above and behind the operative now. She peered around the trunk of the tree, the senbon clutched between her knuckles. He was a tall and slender man, and around the lip of the cloak she could see tufts of silver...

_Wait a minute, _she thought_._ If an agent had been sent on an assassination mission with her or the boys as the target, it would be anyone but the man before her. She slipped the envenomed needles silently back in their holster, and released the genjutsu.

"If you wanted to see how we were doing, Kakashi-san_,_" she said, "you could have walked up and said hello."

He jerked a little, and whipped his head around as soon as she opened her mouth. A shuriken followed a split second after, commendably fast...but not fast enough to defeat a mastered sharingan. She was already twisting her neck out of the way as the blades severed a few strands of her hair, and impacted a tree behind her. He paused with his hand outstretched, as he registered her familiar face, and did not draw another.

By ANBU standards, he had been startled halfway out of his skin. Mikoto was astonished by her own success. She hadn't realized she was trying to sneak up on the infamous Master of a Thousand Jutsu. He must not have considered her worthy of revealing his single sharingan. His mistake.

They hadn't had much meaningful contact since Obito's funeral, and that had been years ago. The Uchiha subtly shunned Kakashi as an impostor upon his return from the Kannabi Bridge, bearing the eye of one of their fallen sons. Young, impressionable, and not entirely conscious of doing do, Mikoto had joined in. She'd never been particularly close to the boy, having a large family and more than enough little cousins and nephews to dote over whenever she felt the urge. She also felt a certain loyalty to Obito, who claimed his teammate was the most humorless, arrogant, hidebound little prick he'd ever met, and made sure to mention it frequently. Kushina, however, had been smitten with him, as odd of a child as he was, and Sakumo's death only solidified the bonds of their piecemeal family. She had been an orphan herself, and was, of course, dating his jōnin sensei, and connected on a much deeper level with the grieving boy than Mikoto ever could.

"Aah...huh…ahem," he stuttered, rubbing the back of his head in a show of embarrassment entirely unbecoming of Konoha's elite shinobi unit. "Mikoto-sama."

"Why were you watching me?"

"I wanted to be sure of some things," he replied evasively, trying to recover some of his dignity.

"_What_ things?" she pressed. "Being tailed by an ANBU operative makes me nervous. It's an accusation of mistrust directly from the Hokage, and I want to know what I'm being investigated for."

He sighed uncomfortably, like a kid caught sneaking cookies before dinner. "I am technically on duty right now, but watching you isn't a mission from the Hokage. It's personal."

Although she conceded this may have changed in the intervening years, as far as she knew, Kakashi didn't do 'personal'. Besides those disgusting Icha Icha books he was never seen without, he had no life whatsoever outside of missions. Then something occurred to her. After the disastrous dinner, Itachi hadn't mentioned the unofficial third son she'd inserted into their family, but he didn't have to if his captain was performing the surveillance. "This is about Naruto, isn't it," she said. It wasn't a question.

"I need to know your intentions toward the brat are pure. I owe it to Minato-sensei."

Mikoto furrowed her brows, feeling deeply insulted. "I wouldn't hurt a child."

"You wouldn't be the first. Or the second."

"Look, I need to get back to the boys, before they realize that's a bunshin watching them. Will you be off sentinel duty by two? I can talk then."

"Yeah."

"Meet me at the Three Orchids tea shop," Mikoto said. "Their clientele is mostly shinobi; they'll understand that we need to have a private conversation."

He nodded, and disappeared in a small puff of smoke. She looked out through the leaves. The boys had returned empty-handed, and were now absorbed in an overturned stone and the creepy-crawlies squirming beneath, their backs to the false Mikoto. She activated a kawarimi with her own duplicate, then dismissed it with one seal. Neither of them noticed she'd even been gone.

She couldn't believe it. She'd snuck up on _Hatake Kakashi, _and she was giddy with the thrill of a difficult maneuver perfectly executed_. _To be truthful, a large part of it had been good luck, and now that he was aware she hadn't let her skills rust away, she would never, ever be able to do it again, but still.

She also got the sense she might have another ally in the fight to give Naruto something resembling a happy childhood. Kakashi was a strange, strange man, but he did care enough about Naruto's wellbeing to risk crossing a very politically connected Uchiha. He had suffered one horror after another as a child—if she could even call someone who received their hitai-ate at six a 'child'. He, not any of his father's team, had been the one to find the man's still-warm guts spilled over his bedroom floor. Even after Sakumo's death, there were still those that shunned his son for his father's supposed crimes. Maybe he would be willing to aid her in sparing Naruto some of the loneliness he'd endured.

-ooo-

Mikoto left Sasuke with a neighbor, and arrived at the Three Orchids at three, with her book, just in case—Kakashi's tardiness was the stuff of village legend. In her youth, this teashop had been one of her team's favorite places to unwind after a mission. The proprietors were utterly trustworthy, and maintained several semi-private alcoves with sound-dampening seals painted on the dividing screens. It was the best place to discuss classified mission details with friends without breaking confidentiality. Mikoto explained her requirements, and who she was expecting. The waiter led her to an empty table, and took her order for a pot of genmaicha and a small plate of sweets.

Kakashi wandered in about fifteen minutes later, and slouched into his seat. That man could slouch like a champion. She reflexively sat up a little straighter. "Sorry I'm late," he said airily. "I took a wrong turn on the path of life, and..."

She shut her book, and listened to his circuitous excuse with amusement. It could have been word for word one of Obito's. Maybe it was. The eye wasn't the only part of her perpetually tardy nephew Kakashi had made his own, who, until his teammate's death, had been quite a punctual little bastard. "That's quite all right," she assured him graciously. "Would you like some tea? It's still hot."

"Mmm...no thanks," he said.

"Suit yourself," she said, and sipped some of hers. It was nuttily fragrant and very good. She saw his nostrils flare under the fabric of the mask, and he glanced longingly at the other cup.

"On second thought, maybe a little."

While she poured it for him, he whipped out one of his dirty books, and arranged it strategically over the lower half of his face, before pulling his mask down with one finger. That was odd. Most shinobi wore their scars like medals of honor, only covering them if they were so disfiguring they tended to frighten civilians. She pushed the cup toward him, and raised an eyebrow. "For the love of...Kakashi-san, please, no pornography at the table," she said, in voice that could set grown men to stammering like schoolboys. "I served on the Iwa border, remember? Whatever happened to your face isn't going to faze me."

"Well, you know what I look like already, so I suppose..." he mumbled, and very slowly lowered the tome.

To her surprise, he wasn't hideously scarred. In fact, his mask concealed movie-star caliber good looks. If he'd been less nuts, and herself younger and less married...she caught herself, and squashed that notion with ferocity. That wasn't why they were here. The question remained why he wore it, but she wasn't going to ask. The affectation had begun after his father's suicide, and with such a sensitive subject she knew she wouldn't get a straight answer. "Thank you, now..." she said, getting down to business. "Naruto."

He sipped his tea, and waited for her to continue.

"I don't have any designs on him. I'm worried about him. You said you owed Minato? I owe Kushina. I feel like I haven't been...keeping up my obligations to her. Until he enrolled in the Academy, and made friends with Sasuke, I had no idea how badly he was being mistreated because of the Kyūbi. Did you know someone at the public orphanage tried to immolate him?"

"Yes," he said, the jovial expression fading from his face. "I dealt with his assailant personally. _That_ is why I've been tailing you. It wouldn't be the first time someone pretended to befriend him, in order to hurt him badly. No offense to you personally, but I know how much the Uchiha lost to the Kyūbi, and what most of them think of him. Your sudden interest tripped a lot of alarms."

Mikoto felt a trickle of relief. So Naruto _had_ had a guardian angel looking over his shoulder, even if it was one as aloof and eccentric as Kakashi.

"I don't know a god damn thing about taking care of kids," he continued. "I don't even have any experience being one. I do for Naruto what I can, which at the moment is only eliminating the people who are trying kill him."

"It's not enough, is it," she said. Nothing was, when you were trying to live up to the memories of people long gone, looking at them through the deceptively golden glow of nostalgia.

"No. Not nearly enough," he agreed. His briefly closed his visible eye. "At least I had Minato-sensei after my father killed himself." He forced out a heavy breath through his teeth. "I can't be that for Naruto. I spend my entire day killing people for money, expanding my porn collection, or drinking. I'd be the worst mentor imaginable. But you...I mean, Itachi turned out okay."

Mikoto stiffened. That hit far too close to home. The ranks of ANBU must be a menagerie if _Itachi_ was considered emotionally stable. She ignored the comment, and hoped Kakashi took the hint and didn't push her. "At least you care about him. You might turn out to be a better teacher than you think."

He snorted softly. "Yeah. Right."

Mikoto glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall. "I need to get going soon. Have you officially decided you can trust me?"

"About Naruto? For the moment," he said.

_For the moment? _she repeated to herself. What was he trying to say? That there would come a moment in the future when he'd stop? As a shinobi, and then as the wife of a prominent political figure, she'd gotten very good at teasing the hidden meanings from conversation. The paranoia she felt creeping up on her in the park returned. Maybe he'd been lying about this being personal, or at least not telling her the whole truth. She herself had done nothing to call her loyalty to Konoha into question, but Fugaku, or the clan elders...a sick chill crawled up her spine. He'd been spending an abnormally large amount of time away from home lately, and Itachi's mission to Kiri...what were they _doing?_

She drained her teacup, and fished enough ryo from her purse to cover the tea. She wouldn't find the answer to the question here.

Kakashi stood, and pushed back his chair as she put her bag back in order. "Hey, about that, um, incident in the park?" She looked up at him. "You're...still pretty good with genjutsu. The only other person who could pull that kind of stunt on me is Itachi. I was wondering where he got it from." He let out a muffled snicker. "Turns out it wasn't dear old dad after all."


	7. Chapter 7

**Thoughts:**

I lied in my last author's note. It's Fugaku that spills the plot to Mikoto in Chapter 8, she doesn't confront Itachi about it until chapter 10. Got the order flipped around in my head, apologies. I think I need to work on my pacing. The last fan-novel I did moved too fast, this one in hindsight might be too slow. Practice is what fanfic is for, so, well...oops.

* * *

Mikoto waited patiently for Itachi to return from his patrol on Konoha's massive walls, whenever that might be. The start and end time of the shifts were slightly randomized every day, to lessen the chance an intruder would be able to make use of a stolen patrol schedule. It also made Itachi extraordinarily difficult to catch upon his arrival, since he seemed to make a conscious effort to avoid everyone but Sasuke, and then disappeared behind his locked door until mealtime. She threw on a jacket and gloves, and pulled the old broom out of the tool shed to begin sweeping the front walk free of leaves as slowly as possible. The only way he could avoid her now was by vaulting over the wall.

Her fingers were tending toward numb by the time her eldest son finally stepped around the bend, his gear bag slung over his shoulder, and his eyes fixed on the stones. She paused in her sweeping to smile at him. "How was your day?" she asked.

"Uneventful," he said blandly, making to brush past her with the barest minimum of courtesy.

"I ran into Kakashi-san at the park today," she said to his back. That got a reaction, although not much of one. His sandals scraped on the stones, as he turned to look back at her.

"And I think you know what I mean when I say 'ran into'," she said, with a hint of a challenge in her voice.

"I do not," he answered, still with that flat, opaque tone. "I haven't spoken to him today. Please excuse me; I'd like to wash up before dinner." He turned on his heels, and continued walking briskly to the entrance of the house.

She hefted the broom, and went after him, taking out some of her frustration with him on the undeserving door. Did he really think she was as blandly passive as the face she put on for his father? He knew she had been...or maybe still was...a shinobi. She slammed the door behind her, and jogged a little to catch up; he was very tall for his age, and had longer legs than she did. He'd taken the covered walkway outside of the house, and that was where she caught up with him. She stopped short when she realized what he was staring at.

Sasuke was dangling by his ankle, like a plucked chicken, from the large tree in the yard, his belt and pouch of practice kunai sitting in front of Naruto. His face was already very red, but it intensified when he registered that Itachi was here to witness this humiliation.

"Get me out of this," Sasuke growled at his grinning captor.

"Not until you admit I'm awesome," Naruto answered smugly, from his seat in the tree roots. He was resting his hands behind his head, and looking more relaxed than anyone could possibly be in this cold. He smiled even wider at Mikoto and Itachi when he noticed he had an audience.

Mikoto scowled at them, and put her free hand on her hip. "Naruto, let him down before he passes out—and _gently_. A broken wrist is a much bigger problem for him than it is for you. Sasuke..."

"Environmental awareness. Yeah, yeah, Mom, I know," he said in a small voice, as he twisted forlornly in the wind.

Naruto disappeared into the arborvitae, and fiddled with the rope's hidden anchor. He stood, and put some slack into it with a grunt of effort, inching Sasuke down as slowly as he could. He stopped when Sasuke's head was a hand's width from the ground, and his forearms were just resting in the grass. "Come on, say it," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

"You...stink," Sasuke whispered back.

"Naruto..." Mikoto said, warningly, taking a few steps forward. He grinned at her, and lowered Sasuke the rest of the way down, who landed in an undignified tangle.

"Hi!" Naruto said brightly, tossing the rope aside, to let Sasuke cut himself free. "You must be Itachi!"

"Uzumaki Naruto-kun," Itachi said. "Your reputation has preceded you."

Naruto stomped up to the lip of the covered porch, looking insulted. "It did _not_," he said.

"Do you even know what that means, you retard?" Sasuke interjected, as he sawed at the rope with a dull kunai from the pouch in front of him.

Itachi regarded the huffing boy with cool curiosity. "It means 'to come before', and is certainly no insult. I mention this only because you apparently outran an ANBU sentinel, when he caught you packing the theater ventilation system with week-old fish heads."

"Yeah, well, that jerk owner had it coming," Naruto explained, utterly unrepentant. "Last week he tossed me out right at the beginning of _Curse of the Mind Leeches, _even though I really bought a ticket that time. Snatched it right out of my hand when I showed it to him, and nobody chased _him _down for stealing from _me_."

Sasuke was still struggling with the rope and blunt blade. Itachi took notice of his difficulties, and drew out a kunai from his holster to toss it casually in the direction of the tree trunk, without taking his eyes off Naruto. It landed with a thunk above his brother's head. Sasuke reach up, pulled it out, and mumbled his thanks.

"If I may ask..." Itachi said. "How did you manage it?"

"Nobody wanted them anyway, so I just waited until it got dark, and jumped into the dumpster behind the fishmonger's with a garbage bag, and—"

"I meant outrun ANBU."

"Are you kidding? I do it, like, all the time!" Naruto declared proudly. "Nobody knows Konoha like I do, and grownups are too big to fit through half my secret shortcuts. It got a lot easier after the Old Man told them they're not allowed to throw stuff at me. But I didn't think that was fair, so I said they could use those needle thingies if they wanted to; those don't hurt very much." Naruto paused and rubbed at his nose. "Man, our ANBU guys really suck. Well, mostly it's Doggy-face. Jeez is he slow. When I'm Hokage, they'll have to shape up, or I'm gonna fire 'em all."

On the porch, Mikoto cocked her head in thought. ANBU sentinels had better things to do than chase after seven-year-old vandals. And as she'd just learned, Kakashi wore a canine mask, although he was only one of several among Konoha's ANBU that did so. Maybe this was his slightly twisted way of spending some time with his sensei's son. Having been made a genin so young, Kakashi didn't exactly have a lot of experience in playground games. But...what they were doing could be called tag—if you stretched the definition to include bladed weapons and possible prison time.

"Hound," Itachi corrected mildly, confirming Mikoto's supposition. "And there are not many who would feel the need to level the field, when being pursued by ANBU agents."

"Why not?" Naruto asked, genuinely curious. "It's more fun that way."

Itachi looked intently at him, as if prying for the sarcasm that ought to have been interlaced with such a statement. After some consideration, he decided to take it at face value. Correctly, he judged Naruto to be unfamiliar with such a concept. "I cannot imagine. They obviously do not have your well-developed sense of fair play."

Sasuke had finally succeeded in freeing himself from the thick coil of rope, and stood up, dusting some crumbled leaves from his pants. He cleared his throat, and looked sheepishly at Itachi. "He totally got lucky with that, you know," he mumbled, and took a few steps toward the porch, intending to return the kunai.

Naruto's face went stiff, and he snapped around. "No, crap, don't—" Sasuke looked down as an almost invisible tripwire bit into shin. "Move," he finished lamely.

Simultaneously, there was a clicking sound from the walls, and dozen slender bamboo stakes came sailing toward Sasuke. He yelped, and dove to the ground, rolling out of the impact radius.

Before Mikoto could react, Itachi raised his head, and exhaled sharply through pursed lips. She barely had time to notice the ends of the projectiles were fitted with suction cups, rather than something actually dangerous, before they were completely incinerated by the ball of flame. In hindsight, Itachi's instinctive reaction was probably overkill.

There was a breath of silence. "_THAT WAS FREAKING AWESOME!_" Naruto shrieked at him, as the ashes of his makeshift arrowheads drifted away on the wind. "I didn't see you use any handsigns or anything!"

Sasuke picked himself up off the ground, again very red in the face. "That didn't count either," he muttered. "Mom told you a million times not to set trip-lines in the house."

Naruto ignored him, all of his attention on Itachi. Sasuke scowled. He wasn't used to being ignored by Naruto. "Finally, a worthy opponent!" Naruto said, sliding his feet wide, and jabbing his finger in the general direction of Itachi's chest. "I challenge you to—"

"I am a jōnin. That would be unwise."

"Right, right, your mom doesn't like us sparring all out in the house anyway," Naruto said, favoring the tight-lipped Mikoto with a toothy, and somewhat apologetic smile. "How about you teach me how to do that instead?"

Sasuke sniffed, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Lost cause," he muttered sourly.

"No," Itachi, predictably, answered.

"Pfft. You are one-hundred percent as lame of a big brother as Sasuke said you were," Naruto said.

Sasuke's eyed flicked back and forth between Naruto and Itachi. "_What_? I never—" he said, horrified.

Naruto wrapped his arm around Sasuke's shoulders, intensifying the other boy's expression of mortification. "Naw, but you were thinking it. Well, whatever. We can figure it out ourselves if your big _sister_ is too busy brushing her hair, and doing her makeup and stuff, to teach us ninjutsu. Come on, Sasuke," he said, with finality, and steered him towards the front door.

Sasuke pushed Naruto away with a huff, and started towards the door on his own. "Seriously, if you don't take that back about my brother I'm going to hurt you." Naruto grinned and trotted after him, completely ignoring the less-than-serious threat, and launching into a grand plan to master the gōkakyū no jutsu before the weekend.

Mikoto simply stood there, her mouth hanging open, and her irritation with Itachi momentarily forgotten. Yes, he _did_ wear his hair long (because he couldn't be bothered to cut it regularly), and, yes, he _had_ inherited her long, luxuriant eyelashes, but...nobody teased Itachi that way. Ever. The other children had been too terrified of him, and his family much too formal, and even his sensei Shisui's brotherly ribbing had tapered off around when Itachi made chūnin. All of this had apparently washed over Naruto, who, rather like his mother, did not seem to know fear.

She glanced over at a curious noise. Itachi hadn't used the opportunity of her distraction to disappear, as she would have expected, and was still standing by the steps into the garden with one hand on a beam. Itachi was...Itachi was _laughing_?

On any other young man, the shallow crescent of his lips, and faint quivering of his shoulders, would barely have registered as a response, but it was more mirth than she had seen out of Itachi in a long, long time. So long she couldn't even recall what it sounded like. She propped her broom up against the wall when Itachi turned fully to look at her, still smiling faintly. "He is brave," Itachi said. "And for the village idiot, remarkably cunning. To be honest, I think _I _would have found it a challenge to evade even an apathetic ANBU agent at seven years old. I'm surprised he lost second place to that Aburame in the class rankings."

Mikoto folded her arms over her chest, looking at the remnants of the snare trap he'd constructed. It was quite clever, using the cover of the long ornamental grass to conceal the mechanism. "He didn't lose anything to the Aburame," she said. "There wasn't a contest. He's dead last."

Itachi's eyebrows elevated slightly. "The son of the Yellow Flash, who is skilled enough to evade not only his chūnin teachers but an ANBU sentinel, is dead last?"

"Yes."

"Ah," he said. "Since I cannot imagine every one of the Academy instructors degenerated into a drooling idiot since I attended, I believe I now understand why you've tucked him under your wing. He seems to have potential."

"You didn't seem so pleased about that the last time Naruto came up in conversation," Mikoto pointed out. 'Displeased' was an understatement.

Itachi shrugged. "I was misinformed. Rumor was unkind—he doesn't seem to be the sort of monster half of Konoha assumes he is."

"You can decide that after meeting him once?" Mikoto asked. She was getting more confused by the second.

"Sasuke likes him," he said, and his voice went strangely tight. "He ought to have a few good friends outside the clan."

She didn't know what he meant by _that. _A reference to her relationship to Kushina, perhaps? Yes, that was probably it. It was a good thing to form bonds with people that didn't necessarily think and act like you. It was a rather quick reversal, but perhaps what Fugaku had said during their heated discussion the night of Itachi's return had mollified him, although she couldn't imagine what that might be. Naruto was still as much of a jinchūriki as he had been last week. Unless this didn't really have much to do with a threat _Naruto _posed, but rather...

Her train of thought was derailed, as it suddenly occurred to her where it was the younger boys were probably going. Sasuke had managed his very first jutsu a few days ago, having finally gotten the hang of chakra redirection with her advice. It was a big step from a simple bunshin to one of the signature Uchiha fire techniques, but she was afraid Sasuke was precocious enough to manage it.

"Itachi...would you do me a favor, and go with them to the pond, just this once?" she asked. "Sasuke already knows the handsigns inside out, and with Naruto urging him on, I'm afraid they might actually make good on that threat to master the gōkakyū. You know his control isn't very good yet. I'm afraid he could really hurt himself without at least some guidance."

What was left of the laughter faded completely. "That is traditionally a father-son activity. Forbid him from trying until Father is ready to teach him."

"With Naruto in the mix 'forbidding him' will do precisely nothing...please?" she implored. "You know how much he idolizes you—he might actually pay attention to the precautionary steps, if you tell him what they are. Train with him just for today? He's probably asked you every other day since he started at the Academy."

"You could instruct him yourself, could you not? I assume you have enough familiarity with the technique," he added archly.

Mikoto sighed. That old frustration was bubbling up again. "Why do you _do_ that?" she asked. "Always push him away? He's starting to think you don't want him to become as great as you are."

"Then he is correct," Itachi said evenly, making Mikoto draw back in surprise. "Perhaps I misread your intentions, but I believed we were of the same mind in this, if nothing else."

She opened her mouth, and rapidly shut it again, as the deeper meaning of his words became clear. Despite all the acclaim to which he was accustomed, one thing Itachi had never become was conceited. The way he said such a thing, it was…almost sad, not spiteful. Sasuke had the same potential Fugaku had recognized in Itachi, and his elder brother could see it even if their father could not.

And there was a reason Itachi would wish to shelter the boy from such attention, just like she had, whether she was fully conscious of her efforts or not. "Yes. We are," she said softly, bowing her head.

Itachi had been accepted into the Academy just as the last of her kunoichi's fire had guttered out, and she finally started to believe the insidious lies she had been fed her entire life. An Uchiha wife was obedient to her husband in all things. She had acquiesced to the unbelievably harsh training regimen Fugaku had imposed on the five-year-old Itachi, stood silent again as he was propelled at breakneck speed to graduation at seven, and still did not protest when he was granted special authorization to begin taking C-rank missions outside of the village at eight. He was a prodigy, yes. But he had still been a little boy without the power to refuse his father anything.

His first kill was at eight years old. Eight. A genin from Iwa whose mission was to escort the merchant baron it had been Shisui and Itachi's mission to arrest. Iwa ninja were legendarily stubborn. The merchant's young guardsman had ignored his teacher's warning to be doubly wary of anyone from Konoha with a blue star on his sleeve, and charged them anyway. Itachi's kunai found his throat before he could take five full steps, guided by the almost prescient power of that third tomoe. The motion was probably drill-perfect, all reaction, no contemplation. Draw and release. The jōnin sensei of the dying teenager had cursed him, and all Konoha shinobi, as heartless monsters, for who but a monster would make such a perfect assassin of a little child?

Shisui had incapacitated the remaining Iwa shinobi, and delivered the traitorous weapons dealer to the authorities, Itachi mutely trailing in his wake. They returned without further incident, and the mission was marked a success. Shisui guided his student home, stony-faced as a proper shinobi should be, but once Mikoto had him alone, he could no longer hold back the torrent of self-reproach. It was too early and too much. That night was the closest Shisui had ever come to open conflict with the Clan Head, and he was so loyal he would have sworn under oath the sky was green, if Fugaku told him it was so.

Itachi had shut himself in his room, and refused to speak to anyone for a full day. She had heard him sobbing through the locked door when she passed, and her whole being had wanted to take him in her arms, and brush those tears away. He wouldn't let her then, and had never done so since. That mission had almost broken Itachi, and the words of the Iwa jōnin must have haunted him to this day. It had lain in the shadows of her mind for a long time. How she should have said _something_, convinced her husband to allow their son the time to let his fragile young heart catch up to his talented hands.

He had long ago ceased to be afraid of his father for his own sake, but it lingered on behalf of Sasuke. He didn't want his little brother's soul stained with murder before he had grown up enough to absorb the consequences. He was right, but there was room for compromise. "I understand your rationale, but please, show him enough of the technique to allow him to practice without hurting himself," Mikoto said. "When your father does find out he's mastered the gōkakyū...between the two of us, we should be able to keep the pace of his training to reasonable limits, and keep him from graduating early. It's not the same as when you were a genin. Konoha is almost at full strength again. The need for new shinobi isn't as pressing."

"We?" he said, skeptical.

"_We_," she said firmly.

There it was again. A shadow of a smile. "I'll have Sasuke back in time for dinner," he said, and moved to leave her. He stopped in the doorframe on his way to the back of the house. "And Mother...thank you."


	8. Chapter 8

**Thoughts:**

I have them?**  
**

* * *

The autumn winds blew into one of Konoha's cool, rainy winters, and there seemed to be more and more black-cloaked figures crouching like gargoyles on the roofs of the Uchiha district. Mikoto had never really thought about it before; a number of ANBU were always on patrol within the village walls, seen and unseen, protecting the peace of Konoha from the threats without while the Military Police dealt with the threats within. Kakashi's tacit promise that the surveillance on her would cease was not kept. For a sensor like herself, it was torment to feel those eyes constantly on her back, the intrusive attention about which she could do nothing.

She was not the only one to notice. ANBU operatives could become nearly invisible, if they wished, and most Uchiha were not paranoid enough to use the sharingan when walking their dogs or shopping for groceries. Because ANBU did choose to stalk the clan's rooftops openly, she could only assume it was some kind of intimidation tactic. The gossip of the Uchiha wives turned away from the marital indiscretions and vicarious one-upmanship of Academy scores that were their usual fodder, to more recent and troubling developments. Some of the clan members not in the police force had started to receive only low-priority, long-term missions completely unsuited to their skills, and their wives were complaining about a significant drop in their income for no good reason. Even the day-to-day police work was suffering, with the Black Ops division inventing heretofore unknown bureaucratic delays for processing evidence, or even taking over cases entirely when they and the Military Police ought to have had joint jurisdiction. No one knew what was happening, and they looked to Mikoto for answers. She had none to give, only speculations and empty reassurance.

Itachi began making more frequent visits to Kiri, and her son came back looking more haunted every time. Normally so calm, his temper began flaring unpredictably at everyone but Sasuke, closing him off from his family and clan. Invitations from Shisui to get a bite to eat between missions were blown off without excuse or explanation. Uchiha Anzu, the beautiful young chūnin who was doing her utmost to land a date with the prickly clan heir, was even more savagely brushed away. Under her stunning looks, she was a very mature and intelligent young woman, recently invited to serve on the personal guard of the daimyo himself. Mikoto liked her quite a bit...and she was reaching out to Itachi in a way nearly all of the shinobi his age were afraid to try. Mikoto found her on the bank of the Uchiha pond, in tears, after Itachi had finally consented to have some tea with her. He had arrived late, then spent the entirety of the short conversation hinting the skills she'd been selected for she'd demonstrated not in the arena, but on her knees in the daimyo's hotel suite.

That Itachi was so casually cruel to someone so undeserving didn't even surprise her anymore. The considerate, patient son Mikoto knew and loved was dying. She felt like a stranger in her own home, a stranger in her own village.

And then, one stormy night, she learned why.

-ooo-

Mikoto shuffled into the room with dainty steps, noting each face with care, despite her downcast eyes. The paintings on the paper screens seemed to dance in the flickering candlelight; Konoha was far enough inland that the typhoon thrashing the coastline had lost most of its muscle, but, even in its weakened state, had been enough to down several power lines. No one was out save the bare minimum of ANBU sentinels, and a few unlucky service crews.

Two of the three Elders were here. Fugaku's uncle Yujiro, brother of the previous Clan Head, and Ozuru, who had served beside him as the previous Chief of Police. The third cushion was filled by Shisui, the son of the third, here in his father's stead who was in poor health. Mikoto began gracefully pouring tea for four. Itachi was gone on a mission with Kakashi. Behind her look of serene loyalty, her mind was churning furiously.

Why call a council when the heir was missing? This was not ordinary clan business. Or even out-of-the ordinary clan business. She was not sure exactly what his role was in this mystery, but the fact that Fugaku had entrusted Itachi with the dangerous solo missions to Kiri said that he had played the role of his father's trusted proxy. But something between them had changed, since his return from the last one. He was almost as rude to Fugaku as he was to the rest of the clan, although for the most part did as he was told.

The air of conspiracy in the room oozed over Mikoto's skin. She had delayed her own investigation into the matter, convincing herself there would be a better way, and a better time, if only she waited a bit longer. Truthfully, part of her didn't want to know what they were planning. She could ignore the uneasy looks like a dutiful wife was trained to do. She could go back to the kitchen, and gossip with her maid, leaving to the men the work of governing the Uchiha. It wasn't her problem.

Just like Naruto hadn't been 'her problem'. Sometimes, she suspected she was so keen on doing the little, unimportant things herself that she had no time to spare for the big ones.

Mikoto retrieved the lacquer tray, and bowed deeply to the council members, who spared her barely a scrap of attention. A well-behaved wife had the advantage of being invisible, no more worthy of suspicion than a table or a teacup. She padded out, and against her better judgment sank to her knees outside the door before sliding it shut. It was within the bounds of expected behavior for an attentive hostess. If he didn't want her to hear, Fugaku would have to tell her explicitly to leave, and that would be an admission of foul play in itself. No such order came. She let her hopes rise the slightest bit, although they would probably activate a sound-suppression jutsu anyway, and all of this would be pointless.

The men began murmuring in low voices, but she could catch at least some of the words. If she had been spying on anyone else, she would have cast a subtle suggestion toward them to speak more loudly. With Shisui in the room, she didn't dare. He was the undisputed master of the hypnotic powers of the sharingan, far more skilled than herself. He could twist someone's mind around so skillfully, his victims were not even aware the thoughts echoing in their heads were not their own. Mikoto was subtle, but not subtle enough to try to cast a genjutsu of suggestion on Shisui. She forced herself to be as still as possible, and strained her ears.

They were discussing Itachi, and his increasingly erratic behavior over these last few months. He was supposed to be the "pipeline to the village", but had been failing in his duties. Information, the currency of the powerful, was not flowing.

"He's done well establishing the alliance with the Mizukage," said a gravelly voice she recognized as belonging to Fugaku's uncle. "But the speed of the negotiations left something to be desired. The Hokage became suspicious of his multiple requests for leave."

Mikoto's hands tightened on the silk of her kimono. So his missions to Kiri_ had_ been unauthorized. Ostensibly, ANBU operatives took orders from only one man: the Hokage. They were supposed to be free from political and familial entanglements. That was why it was so rare for a clan as insular as the Uchiha to have a member accepted into their ranks.

"The Hokage knows the heir of the most powerful clan in Konoha will need time to attend to political matters," Fugaku countered. "It isn't unprecedented, and I made the terms of his acceptance very clear to Sarutobi. He is still my son, and he has duties to the clan."

"That is _not_ what I meant," his uncle said crossly. "Of course there are political functions to attend. Sarutobi knows that. But he has not been nearly as free with his trust as we had hoped. Or he has purposely withheld information from Itachi, so as not to burden him with...conflicts of interest." There was a significant pause. "Perhaps he is unsure of Itachi's ability to split his attentions. Because frankly...so am I."

"What, exactly, are you trying to say?" Fugaku asked, his voice gone dangerously quiet.

"That he hasn't split his attention—it's being torn in half!" his uncle exclaimed, then continued in a more muffled voice that lost very little of its ferocity. "He lives under your roof. Are you oblivious to how unstable he's become? He lashes out at his own kin with the flimsiest of provocations. He publicly disrespects both you and Mikoto. And just yesterday he used an A-Rank genjutsu on Gero's son, after Itachi falsely assumed he was threatening Sasuke. The boy was _nine_. He nearly had to be hospitalized."

"We never should have allowed him to join ANBU," muttered the former Chief of Police. "He was too young. Sarutobi has filled his head with half-truths and Senju nonsense. He is at war with himself, and those battles are taking their toll."

A teacup hit the table with force, and she could hear liquid slosh over the table. No one called for her to come in and clean it up. "No son of mine has betrayed us," Fugaku shot back. "How could you even suggest such a thing?"

"For all of our sakes, I sincerely hope that is the case," his uncle said. "Nevertheless, we cannot put our faith in a boy who has proven himself unreliable. There is too much at stake."

Shisui finally spoke up, the sole voice of youth. "His behavior lately _is_ cause for concern, but I don't believe Itachi has betrayed us either," he said firmly. "Service in ANBU is mentally taxing even for grown men. Give him some time. We can afford a brief delay. If he would only speak to me, I'm sure I could..."

"Are you confident you could reach him?" Yujiro asked. "Completely confident?

The silence went on too long.

"I thought so," Yujiro said. "I realize the bond of student and teacher is strong, but you must not allow it to cloud your vision. I do not know if he is reporting on our activities to the Hokage, or simply being obstructive, but we cannot take the risk of him betraying our cause. He must be watched, and as his closest friend you are in the best position to do so. He may find his way again, and I can only hope that he does. But if that is not the case...I trust you are capable of doing what must be done."

A sharp intake of breath, from Fugaku. "If it will lay yours fears to rest...very well. Shisui," he ordered. "Monitor his activities while he is within the village walls—who he speaks to, and where he goes. If anything is suspicious, I want you to relay that information directly to me."

"I understand," Shisui said, subdued. "I'll do my best to convince him to rejoin us wholeheartedly—he's always looked up to me, and my words might still have some weight with him. If I can't...know that my loyalties are only to the Uchiha."

"Your father would be proud of you," Yujiro said. "Your devotion to the clan is unimpeachable."

"Thank you, sir," Shisui murmured, although the compliment seemed to sting him a little. "What the Senju have done to us is unconscionable. With your guidance, I will lead Konoha into a new era, and finally realize what Madara-sama began." He paused, and said with some sadness, "although I would hope to do so with Itachi at my side."

"It would be only fitting for two brothers, in spirit if not in blood, to lead the clan again," Fugaku agreed.

Mikoto almost stopped breathing. Madara_-sama_? Officially, the Uchiha held Madara in contempt as a traitor. A disgrace. A black mark on the history of Konoha. But behind closed doors, the shame the Council felt wasn't because Madara had challenged the Shodai. It was because he challenged the Shodai and _lost. _

When the clan had been assembled, and the vote taken, a century ago, the Uchiha were bitterly, bitterly weary. They craved a home—any home, even with the Senju as their neighbors. After so long at war, their children had no place to play, and their elders no place to rest their tired bones. Madara had possessed all the power in the world, and had no need for such comforts. Despite what he delusionally believed, there had been no trickery or coercion involved in the collective decision to select Senju Hashirama as the Shodai. There hadn't been any need. Madara was their leader, and he refused to recognize what his clan was crying out for. For that they turned their backs on him. The majority of the Uchiha recognized Hashirama's wisdom, and the value of his truce. They cast their grudges aside, and worked alongside their old enemies to make something greater than the sum of its parts—a real home—and the first of the Hidden Villages was born.

Time had dulled the sharp prick of that wisdom, it seemed. The old hawks were restless. But why would this surface now, of all times? Under the second reign of the Sandaime, Konoha was peaceful and prosperous. They were arguably the strongest of the five greater villages. The Kyūbi was no longer a threat. And the strange treatment of the Uchiha had only begun _after_ Itachi contacted the Mizukage, so this plan must have had deeper roots.

She was missing pieces. Critical pieces. But there was no mistaking what she did hear. Fugaku was planning to install Shisui as the Godaime Hokage, under explicit control of the Uchiha Clan Council. To do that, he would need to get rid of Sarutobi Hiruzen, and his current Council of Konoha. Such canny shinobi could only be overcome quickly if they were taken unawares, and for that they would need an agent on the inside, to drive the blade in when the time was right.

No wonder Itachi was being driven mad. For the first time in his life, he was part of a team of his peers that judged him only on _who_ he was, not _what_ he was. ANBU looked past age, gender, rank, and clan—merit was everything. They took the most perilous of missions, and had to place absolute trust in their companions to succeed. When wearing his mask, when he was the wolf, Itachi had no legacy to uphold. He was simply part of the team. Even when he was _Uchiha_ Itachi, Kakashi seemed to genuinely like him on a personal level, perhaps seeing both a kindred spirit and a chance to redeem the bond he'd lost along with Obito. The fondness seemed to be mutual, inasmuch as Itachi was willing to express such a sentiment. Until his first mission to Kiri he'd spent a great deal of time in his captain's company.

And now Itachi was being asked to violate that trust in the most repugnant way possible.

The conversation of the Elders turned away from the coup, but she stayed there as if frozen. The candles burned down, and the rain beating against the shingles faded to a quiet drumming, then to nothing. She sat in the darkness, until she heard the crackling of arthritic knees, and rose. One by one the Council filed out past her bowed head. She left the tea things for the morning, and retreated to the bedroom, stowing away the formal kimono in a daze and donning her nightgown in its place. Her elderly cat stalked over to her place by the window, twining its bony body around her ankles, until she lifted it into her lap. She stroked it absently until it thrummed with contentment. So many things settled into place, all of them weights in Mikoto's heart.

Above all, she felt betrayed. She had been a shinobi, a jōnin, a leader. She still _was_. Perhaps Fugaku trusted her to keep silent, but not enough to ask for her counsel before entangling her family in treason. He thought she was nothing, powerless, that as soon as he'd gotten her pregnant all that training and experience had somehow evaporated. Perhaps six months ago she would have accepted his judgment, but not now, once she'd gotten a taste of authority again, and realized how much she savored it.

Beneath the betrayal she was blindingly angry. He didn't want to do it, but all of them had left that room with the understanding that Itachi was to be eliminated, if he compromised their plots. Mikoto would do anything to keep her children safe. It was torture enough to see Itachi leave on his missions, not knowing if he would come back. To know that his own father might be just as much of a threat to his life was more than she could bear.

And the thought of Shisui so calmly _accepting _this...it was obscene. Until today, she had been extremely fond of the young man. Shisui had been a frequent guest at family dinners, and when he called her Mikoto-obasan_, _he meant it, although she wasn't technically his aunt. Years ago, Itachi used to trail after the older boy like a lost gosling, begging to learn 'just one more shuriken jutsu' in exactly the manner Sasuke now did for him. When he graduated from the Academy at seven, it was Shisui that was selected as his sensei, tutoring him exclusively. He made jōnin fairly young himself, and even after Itachi no longer required a teacher's watchful eyes, they remained as close as the brothers to which her husband had alluded. Until her son had joined ANBU, he had no one else she could describe as a friend; the children his age regarded him with awe and no little fear, and the adults of equal rank couldn't bring themselves to socialize with a boy who voice had yet to change.

The cat started, and made a judicious leap off her lap, when it heard Fugaku coming up the stairs. Mikoto stayed where she was, and swallowed back as much of her anger as she could.

Her husband stopped behind her, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. "You're upset with me," he said.

Fugaku had a gift for understatement. "Why didn't you_ tell_ me?" she whispered fiercely. "Would you really order Shisui to..."

He straightened, and took a step nearer, sweeping away a few locks of hair falling over her collarbone. "Itachi is no traitor. You know this as well as I do," he said, failing to answer the question. Maybe it was because he himself didn't know the answer, but that meant he was considering it—considering whether Itachi's life was worth trading for a chance at vengeance. "And I kept the plans secret until now only to protect you," he said, placing his hands on her bare shoulders. "Why else? You know I trust you. No one else has been told outside of the Clan Council; a few more preparations are required before we bring the rest of the Uchiha into the fold."

"But why at all?" Mikoto persisted. "We have everything we wanted. Konoha is strong, and the Uchiha were respected wherever we went."

"And that is what the Hokage and his Council wanted you to believe," Fugaku said, bitter, withdrawing his hands. "We were not _respected_. We were held at arm's length, and tossed scraps of real power. The police are still outranked by ANBU. Our clan was herded into this pen, in which we now live, and we are constantly watched—they only became so blatant about the surveillance after the meeting with the Mizukage. We were under suspicion long before."

"Suspicion of what?"

"That it was an Uchiha that unleashed the Kyūbi, seven years ago."

Mikoto gasped despite herself, turning to face him with disbelief. That was utterly absurd. It had been an accident. The strain of Kushina's laboring had somehow weakened the seal that held the demon inside of her, and her husband, although powerful, was only human. He couldn't keep the seal sustained, and as Naruto was brought into the world, so was the Kyūbi. Minato and Kushina had given their lives to help rectify that failure…or so she had always assumed.

"Several dead ANBU agents and Sarutobi Biwako-sama were found near one of the shrines outside the walls, the night the Kyūbi attacked," he said. "She was mortally wounded, and kept herself alive only with her advanced medical jutsu, until she could pass on the information she'd gained about the identity of their attacker. It was a strange man in a white mask. His eyes were red." Fugaku went quiet. "With the death of the Shodai, the only remaining power that could even hope to control a bijū is the sharingan."

"But it wasn't—"

"Of course it wasn't!" he exploded, savage. "All of it was lies—it was Shimura Danzō's men that found her, at which point she very conveniently breathed her last. That broken old man has always envied the Uchiha. He saw an opportunity to eliminate us, and planted the seeds of our dishonor. The Hokage may not trust him, but he couldn't ignore the possibility that his wife's last words were true. Sarutobi Hiruzen may pretend to care only for smoking his pipe and kissing babies in these peaceful times, but he's a shinobi. He'll eliminate any threat to Konoha that shows its face."

Mikoto was silent, reeling, as Fugaku continued. "The destruction wrecked by the Kyūbi was indiscriminate. The Uchiha gave more in the defense of Konoha than any other clan, and this is our reward!" The muscles of his jaw were shuddering in barely controlled fury. "Everything Madara-sama warned us about is coming true. We swallowed our pride. We compromised. We sacrificed. We gave the Senju everything they asked for, even our lives. What _fools_ we were."

"From this point forward, there will be no more compromises. We will take back everything they stole from us, starting with the robes of Hokage."

"But..." she mustered finally. "What about a diplomatic solution? You just said he doesn't fully trust Danzō. Couldn't you have spoken to him? Convince him we did nothing wrong?"

"You think I didn't try?" Fugaku said. "I was in off-the-record talks with the Council for three months! Every time I met with Sarutobi, he would act as obliging and compassionate as ever, but whenever I thought we'd reached an understanding he'd spit it back in my face. I've never met such a shameless liar...the whole time all he wanted to do was show me how tightly he had the Uchiha leashed. Poor mission distribution, low security clearance, delayed survivor benefits, lost paychecks...it was a farce. If he had entered those negotiations in good faith, I would never have even dreamed of pursuing such a drastic resolution."

He crossed his arms over his chest, his words steeped in bitterness. "I cannot allow my clan to be treated with such disrespect. And I won't have Itachi and Sasuke grow up to perform as the Hokage's trained dogs!"

So this was the point, where everything came together. The whispers, the insinuations, the secret meetings. Mikoto saw herself balanced on a sword's blade, buffeted by winds from both sides. She was an Uchiha before all else, wasn't she? If Fugaku's words were true, and she felt, in her bones, that they were, then it was she who had been betrayed along with the rest of her clan. Aiding in the coup wouldn't be treachery. It wouldn't even be vengeance. It would be justice. She bowed her head, letting his rage wash over her, making it her own. Madara was a monster. But that didn't mean he couldn't be right. Why couldn't Itachi see that?

"I had no doubt you would understand," he said, pleased, when she offered no words of resistance. "I truly wish I could have told you before now, but we needed to be sure of the Mizukage's support before we could begin the preparations in earnest," he explained. "And now that we have it, our victory over the Senju sympathizers is assured. The Uchiha could hold off Iwa; we did it before, and we can do it again. But Kumo is still sore about the resolution to the kidnapping attempt against the Hyūga heir, and they would barely need the excuse to retaliate. We wouldn't emerge victorious fighting a war on two fronts, by ourselves. We needed an alliance. The only reliable way to get troops from Kumo to Konoha is by sea. And they would have to pass through waters patrolled by Kiri to do it."

"Can I ask what they wanted in return?" she said, wary of any assistance from that quarter. They were no friends of Konoha. Until its destruction, they had clashed almost constantly with the fuinjutsu masters of Konoha's close ally Uzushio. Due to the bloodline purges they were also the weakest of the five great villages, and Kumo rivaled Konoha as the strongest. They _did_ have the best navy, by dint of their elemental affinity. Just as the majority of Konoha shinobi had a primary affinity for fire, Kiri shinobi possessed mostly water. There was no worse place to engage one than in the open ocean. Still, something did not sit right with her.

"Little enough that it wouldn't sting too much to pay," he assured her. "Food, mostly. The typhoon season was brutal, and half the dykes broke. Their rice paddies were flooded with seawater."

"They're willing to antagonize Kumo for some shipments of rice?" she asked, skeptical.

"Ah," he affirmed. "Their soil will be poisoned with sea salt for another year, and by that time Water Country would be locked in famine. Even shinobi can't fight for long on empty stomachs." He shifted his weight against the wall, so their eyes no longer met. "And they'll be taking a few old relics of the Shodai off our hands. Nothing too dear to part with," he said, a response far too vague for her comfort. "It's late. Please...come to bed."

Mikoto felt a terrible shiver of unease, and pretended it was a draft, as she meekly slipped into bed beside her husband, once he had changed into a sleeping robe. The bloodthirsty Mizukage did not seem the type to be a collector of antiques. All he was interested in was destruction. It was rumored he was the vessel of the Sanbi, and a shinobi with that much raw power would gain only a very small advantage in battle using one of the trinkets in Konoha's vaults. Really, the only thing liable to tempt him was...

...the thing that outshone the most powerful of those relics like the sun outshines a candle flame. And the malleable young boy that was its keeper.

Fugaku had been so close. He'd turned her world on its head, and she was so angry she would have followed him wholeheartedly into bloody revolution. Perhaps he truly believed the village would be better off without him, but Fugaku was not going to turn her Naruto over to a beast like the Mizukage.

The thought abruptly cooled her anger towards Sarutobi Hiruzen, and let her take hold of her reason again.

Mikoto had built her very successful career as a shinobi on manipulating the expectations of others, and her nose for deceit was as fine as they come. Despite what Fugaku believed, she could not completely accept that the Senju had reneged on their bargain. They built their clan on a purity of intention so deeply held that all three former Hokages had died in battle protecting it. In the chaos before the founding of the village, like-minded clans—Sarutobi, Hatake, Hyuuga, Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi and more—had flocked to the Senju banner because they promised a world that could be better. A world founded on trust, camaraderie, and self-sacrifice. She wasn't so cynical as to believe it was all an act.

Minato's face flashed through her mind, when he was still Minato, and not Yondaime_-sama_: open, honest, fumbling sweetly for her best friend's affections. Possessing a gentleness of spirit that weathered the difficult decisions he was forced to make and the lives he chose to end. Driven to prove himself to his sensei's sensei as worthy of the monumental task offered to him. She knew that man as she did not know the other Hokages, and she was sure he would never stoop to oppressing her clan over a grudge that died a century ago. If Sarutobi Hiruzen had wholeheartedly embraced such a man as his successor, the Sandaime couldn't possibly, either.

The Uchiha Council had gotten it completely wrong. The Hokage wasn't their enemy. If anything, the Uchiha should have been his allies against Danzō, who envied their powers and his robes of office. He was a ruthless, underhanded warmonger to a degree that would have made Madara proud. All of those petty annoyances the Uchiha suffered could easily have been orchestrated without the Hokage's consent or knowledge. In fact, it was the perfect plan. The Hokage would take the blame while the real perpetrator used him as a shield, emerging from the debacle with all of his goals met and not a smudge on him. The problem was that she hadn't a shred of proof, and once Fugaku set his mind to something it was almost impossible to put him off the track.

Mikoto loved her family, but she loved Konoha just as fiercely. Even if the coup succeeded without complications, and that was a very large _if_, Konoha would be weakened. If it degenerated into an all-out civil war, which she thought was more likely, the wolves would circle and leap in to devour any scraps the infighting had left. With the Land of Fire practically defenseless as Konoha's shinobi turned on each other, the Lightning and Earth daimyos could carve up their neighbor at leisure even with Kiri's aid. Konoha would be destroyed as utterly in the Fourth Great War as Uzushio had been in the Third.

If she chose her clan, she might be forced to turn her blades against her last surviving teammate. Her students. Her sensei's son. Maybe her _own_ son. And still her home would probably fall—all for lies and vengeance. That retribution was more important to Fugaku than his firstborn, whom he had trained so carefully and praised so highly. That was the great flaw of the Uchiha. She had struggled with her desire for vengeance against the Kyūbi and won, and now she couldn't even imagine how empty her life would have been without Naruto in it. Fugaku had given in. Under all of his pretensions, he was weaker than she, too much of a coward to refuse to sacrifice her son's life.

She was so frustrated she thought she might lose her mind. An Uchiha wife was supposed to accept her powerlessness, and wear her obedience with the same grace as her embroidered silks. Her husband's word was law. Her sharingan was a gift to pass on to the next generation, not a tool she herself had any business using. In sum, when she became a wife, she ceased to be a shinobi.

But matter how hard they tried, no one could _ever_ really stop being a shinobi.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank You's:**  
As of the last chapter I've blown past my previous records for reviews, favs, and alerts, and I only just hit the middle of the story. The other fandoms I used to write for weren't obscure, either. Thanks folks! Warm, fuzzy feelings of gratitude to you all!

**Narutarded Thoughts:**  
The fourth Shippuden movie (The Lost Tower) has also hit the Internets. It was…pretty dumb. Not even Minato's sexy voice could save it. In my opinion, the only worthwhile part of the movie was seeing Yamato punch his itty bitty senpai in the head. I could watch that on loop _forever._

**Some good suggestions, and a generous helping of commas, brought to you by NamelessPower, who beta'ed this chapter. **_  
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After the conversation with Fugaku, Mikoto considered, and then discarded, the idea of going to Itachi. He had blocked her off so completely from his true feelings, she wasn't sure whose side he had settled on. Her intuition told her that his loyalties had fallen with the Hokage, against his family, but he could be wavering, like she had. He was much too guarded, and too perceptive, to allow her to pry the truth out of him—too much like herself.

But he was not the only direct line to the Hokage that she could tap. His captain would do just as well. She sent a message to Kakashi as soon as she felt she could, in Itachi's handwriting. The forgery may or may not have been able to fool him, but it would cushion her from suspicions on the Uchiha side, and pique Kakashi's interest regardless. She had gone to meet with him once already over the question of Naruto. If she had been observed, it could be passed off as a coincidence. She had no legitimate reason to be meeting the Hokage's own Hound for a friendly cup of tea a second time. She would have to go in disguise to avoid suspicion, and there would be nothing out of the ordinary about a young jōnin meeting his captain to discuss some minor mission details. Although she had no idea what he was doing, since it was classified, she had a general sense of Itachi's mission schedule. It was enough to write a vague, yet passable, note to Kakashi about his team's next assignment, and request a meeting.

She had completed such infiltration missions in enemy territory before, using a combination of her superb acting skills and a cloak of genjutsu. She'd never tried it in her own village, but the principles were the same. As Itachi's mother, she knew his mannerisms inside out, his gait and his patterns of speech. They were of a similar build, too, since for all of his responsibilities, he was only thirteen. Itachi had yet to fill out the body of the man he was growing up to be. Under the cover of night, with a touch of illusion to broaden her shoulders and dull the bluish sheen of her hair, her disguise would be able to fool almost anyone. Genjutsu that subtle, when one wasn't looking for it, could even pass under a sharingan without notice. It wouldn't be able to fool Kakashi for long, but it didn't have to. All she needed was to get him alone long enough for her to explain her purpose.

Her only concern on the clan's side was Shisui, now that his standing surveillance mission from Fugaku was in place. Besides being a shinobi of incredible skill, he had known Itachi almost since the day he was born, and would be able to spot an impersonator. He was also one of the few Uchiha with the chakra reserves and reputation to keep his sharingan activated almost constantly. Fugaku had put him on 'personal leave' from the Military Police, ostensibly out of consideration for his father's rapidly declining health, and his mother's fragile mental state, but really to keep him free to monitor Itachi. If Mikoto made even the slightest mistake, and perhaps even if she didn't, the ruse would be discovered. That meant she needed him out of the way.

-ooo-

Mikoto hardly needed an excuse to visit another council member's household, but Shisui's appearance at the meeting, and not his father's, had dropped one on her lap. She was on reasonably good terms with Shisui's mother Misao, although Misao was much older than Mikoto, and had a tendency to be spiteful. Her husband's health had been worsening for some time, and she truly did want to give the woman whatever comfort that she could. He was old, and the physicians suspected that there were tumors in his lungs, an affliction even Konoha's medics couldn't cure. The family was, if anything, even more hidebound than hers, and if Fugaku hadn't seen fit to bring Mikoto herself into the fold, it was doubtful Misao was even aware of the coup.

She spent the morning on errands, running back and forth to the pharmacy and the flower shop to assemble a basket for Shisui's father. Arrayed in a reserved, dark blue kimono with the Uchiha crest embroidered on the collar, Mikoto rang their doorbell, basket slung over her arm. There was no immediate answer, and she was afraid she'd mistimed it. Not only would that put her work this morning to waste, but if she wanted to get in touch with Kakashi, she_ needed _Shisui otherwise occupied. She put her hand to the door, and let her chakra senses curl past it and through the house. There were two people inside, on the second floor. One of them moved toward her, and she quickly withdrew the tendrils of her awareness. Snooping like that was considered by other sensors to be quite rude when among friends.

Eventually, Shisui slid open the front door. His dark, wavy hair was unbrushed, and he looked very tired, but he smiled wanly when he recognized the caller. Like most of the Uchiha, he was on the tall side, with a wiry frame that was suited to use grace and speed over brute strength. He was dressed in civilian clothes, and was not wearing his hitai-ate, although his sharingan was smoldering as always. "Mikoto_-_obasan_. _Come in," he said, stepping aside to let her pass. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, I was upstairs." Their home was very similar to hers, spacious and tastefully decorated, although there was a film of grime and dust on the floor. Misao had more to worry about than the details of her housekeeping.

"For your father," Mikoto said, handing the basket to Shisui, before she knelt in the foyer to undo her sandals. "Is Misao home?"

"No," he said. "She's at the dispensary, picking up some medications. She should be back soon. Would you like some tea while you wait?"

"No, thank you," she said. "But...I did want to speak with you, since you're here."

Shisui cocked his head, pausing from sorting through the contents of her gift basket. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "You seem anxious."

"No, no," she said, waving him off. He didn't believe her, because she was. He'd be able to pick up on her nervousness no matter how well she thought she was hiding it. It didn't matter. He wasn't a Yamanaka, and he couldn't read minds. All she had to do was redirect that attention. "I'm sorry, it's a little disconcerting at a time like this. Your sharingan_—_I just feel like I'm being interrogated."

"I have a lot of enemies," he said. "It's habit, nothing personal."

Mikoto smiled widely. "None in your own house, I'd hope?"

Shisui closed his eyes briefly, and when he reopened them they were a plain dark brown. "Of course not."

For her sake, Mikoto sincerely hoped that that turned out to be true. Fugaku had selected him as the council's puppet Hokage for a reason. He was incredibly powerful, and not a man she would willingly tangle with. His command of the shunshin jutsu was so masterful he was often favorably compared with the young Minato. It wasn't a true space/time jutsu, like the former Hokage's, but he was so fast it hardly mattered. She had watched him and Itachi 'spar', though their version of that activity was so deadly it barely met the definition of the word. He needed no handseals to use the shunshin, and could combine a dozen or more bursts of that chakra-enhanced speed into one devastating assault. Without her sharingan activated, he was a blur of blue and silver. With her sharingan, it was like watching the most disciplined of dancers, with every motion put to a precise and lethal purpose. According to Itachi, who was not given to exaggeration, Shisui once singlehandedly defeated a whole team of Kiri hunter-nin. Three of them were jōnin, and one of _those_ was the bastard that ripped out the eye of a still-breathing Hyūga genin six months earlier.

And Shisui had been completely unarmed.

His skill wasn't the only thing that frightened her. If you scratched that polite, friendly exterior, you'd find a fanatic underneath. There had always been hints of it, as he was growing up. Mikoto truly didn't want to hurt him, but as he was so stubborn, she was afraid she might not have a choice.

Shisui led her into the living room, and sank into the couch with a sigh, resting his sinewy arms on his knees. Mikoto followed, settling down beside him. "How is he?" she asked gently.

"Now? Asleep," he answered to the floor. "He's in too much pain to do much else, even with the narcotics that the medics gave him. They said it's probably spread into his bones. He doesn't have long."

"I'm so sorry," she said, placing a comforting hand between his shoulder blades. "If there's anything I can do for you or Misao, please ask."

He nodded, grateful. "I wanted...I need him to hold on longer."

"To witness the rebirth of the Uchiha?" she said quietly.

"You _were_ listening," he said, unsurprised, unfolding from the slouch to look at her.

"My husband knows I can be trusted," Mikoto said, although the untruth of the words rasped at her tongue. "He thinks of you as his own son, and I know you'd do anything for the clan, but...I'm afraid he's asking too much of you. Now, especially. If you need some time with your father, I can give it to you. I'm sure I can come up with something to keep Itachi at home for a night or two this week, before he leaves on the Tatsugawa mission."

Shisui smiled a little. "That would be..." he started, and exhaled heavily. "Thank you. It could be days or months. No one knows." He was silent for a little while, and in the quiet she could hear a few labored coughs from upstairs. "About Itachi...maybe you can get him to talk to you. I've tried to get him to open up, but he barely speaks to me anymore. I don't think he's a traitor, but he's closer to the Hokage than any of us in the police force. This act is wearing him down."

"I know. I've tried, believe me. Sasuke is practically the only person that he's civil to at this point," she said.

"Sometimes, I've thought..." he said, trailing off into troubled silence. "Itachi may have the Uchiha eyes, but he isn't one of us, deep inside. He would have been happier growing up in a monastery, not in a hidden village. He cares too much. Always has and probably always will, even if he's gotten better at pretending that he doesn't. I'm not sure how much longer he'll be able to survive as a murderer before he loses his mind."

Mikoto often had the same thought, as much as it hurt to admit that to herself. "It's too late for what-ifs. He's a shinobi now," she said, resigned. "Maybe he'll find a way to live at peace with what he is. Not all of us make our living as assassins. There's the medical specialists, the couriers, the tactical analysts, the teachers, the cryptographers..."

Shisui didn't look optimistic. "He's too good at killing. No kage in their right mind would have him do anything but."

Her response was cut off as she heard the sounds of a key in a lock at the back door, and gave Shisui a consoling smile before rising to greet Misao. He withdrew upstairs to see to his father.

Misao tossed the packages of pills on the counter, and wearily greeted Mikoto. The pleasantries were brief, quickly dissolving into tears. All shinobi expected, on some level, to fall bravely in battle against overwhelming odds. They could not help but feel some shame to dying slowly in their own beds. Seeing her husband in such a state was tearing her friend apart. She let the woman cry on her shoulder for a while, feeling like a snake. With her husband and son so deeply entangled in the plot, it was doubtful that Misao would even live to see its resolution. In all likelihood she was ignorant, but the Hokage was much less generous with his mercy after Orochimaru's defection. Perhaps he knew now that it had been the wrong choice.

Mikoto made empty, soothing noises and wondered if this meant that it was her fault her friend was going to die. When she finally steadied herself, Mikoto bid her good afternoon, promising to come by again tomorrow to help around the house in any way she could.

-ooo-

Shisui gratefully accepted her offer during her visit the next day, as she predicted he would. Now, the problem was fulfilling her end of the deal. Fugaku was still clinging to the wisps of authority he had over Itachi, but Mikoto had nothing. The only way to get him to do anything was through Sasuke.

She had Kushina to thank for her solution. In her genin days, Mikoto had stumbled upon a poison, but a not-very-dangerous one, that made you look awfully like you were coming down with the flu for about three hours. By the time the doctor's notes were written, and the victim ensconced comfortably in bed, the symptoms evaporated. Then, they had a sick day to enjoy without the discomfort of actually being sick. Kushina had seized on the concoction as the most perfect way to play hooky ever invented, and had stolen the formula from underneath Mikoto's nose. For a brief period, it had made her quite popular among her year-mates whenever a sewer-maintenance mission came up. Kushina then went and created a thriving black market for the stuff among the full ranks of Konoha genin, and at one point expanded her little empire into Taki and Kusa over the course of one of the Chūnin Exams. It had netted Kushina a considerable stash of hard cash and favors, at least until the medics got wise to it. Once her teammate's ruse had been uncovered, Mikoto had written off the formula as useless in a combat situation, and tossed it. But when they were older, half as a joke, Kushina had slipped it into the card for her bridal shower. She followed with a whispered suggestion to dump a vialful into the rehearsal dinner's punch, and elope with Daishiro in the ensuing chaos.

Mikoto kept the card in a shoebox, along with a few odds and ends the absent-minded Kushina had left at her house, and then never claimed. It was lucky she didn't have the heart to throw them away. All she had to do was put a few drops of the poison in Sasuke's lunchbox, and arrange it so Itachi was the only one home to care for him. He had been assigned early morning patrols recently, from six in the morning to about three. He was home when Sasuke returned from school, although he usually locked himself in his bedroom to sleep or meditate. She could depend on Sasuke to play his part beautifully; he wasn't nearly as stoic as his older brother and would come sniffing for sympathy as soon as he started feeling ill. Itachi wouldn't leave him home alone if he was spiking a high fever, neatly keeping her promise to Shisui.

The day of the meeting with Kakashi, Mikoto mixed up a very special thermos of tomato soup for Sasuke, a treat that she knew would not end up as a bargaining chip in the complexities of lunchroom politics. She pulled her maid Iriko along on an impromptu day-trip to the nearest onsen, to give herself an alibi. They gossiped in the water for a while, and after late lunch, Iriko wished her good night, making her way home before it got too dark. As soon as she disappeared around a bend in the mountain road, Mikoto collected her things and made her way back to Konoha by much faster means, using chakra to propel herself through the thick forest. She passed through the gates unhindered by the bespelled chūnin guards, and left a kage bunshin behind with instructions to enter hours later. The real Mikoto then disappeared into an alley to change hastily into the set of Itachi's clothes that she'd secreted in her bag. The backpack she left hidden in the alley to collect later. Her genjutsu was excellent, but the more of the disguise that was physically real, the less chance it would be seen through. Kakashi was renowned as a master tracker. His sense of smell was probably on par with an Inuzuka, and she couldn't craft the illusion of a scent that she couldn't perceive.

A perfect replica of Itachi emerged from the alley, and began walking purposefully down the gently curving street that hugged the defensive wall. Kakashi had suggested the meeting place, a dingy shinobi bar that was barely more than a closet. Konoha had a lot of bars. In a hidden village, there were more than enough sorrows to drown.

-ooo-

The establishment was split into two levels, with a narrow counter on the first, and a few tables up a steep and rickety staircase. The bartender came by Mikoto's table with a flask of sake and two cups, without being asked. Itachi was (or had been, until lately) a scrupulously courteous person, a quality that she had drummed into his head as a boy. Itachi would wait for Kakashi before pouring himself a drink, no matter how late the man was.

Mikoto settled in for a wait in the shadows of the tiny bar. Itachi was apparently a frequent customer here. A few other patrons, all shinobi, nodded in greeting, but didn't try to engage him in conversation. This was probably an ANBU hangout, and by extension dangerous for outsiders. For the first time, Mikoto was thankful for her son's taciturn nature. She didn't know who any of these men were, and wouldn't have even been able to speak to them for more than a few minutes without giving herself away. And that could turn out to be lethal.

Kakashi arrived only ten minutes after she did. "Yo," he said, and slid into his seat. "If I've told the barkeep once, I've told him a dozen times—sake for me, milk for you. Some day the cops are gonna to bust him for selling to minors, and then where am I gonna go for a cheap drink?" It was an old joke; Kakashi reached for the flask and poured for both of them without waiting for a response. "What'd you want to ask me, anyway? I thought the plan for the Tatsugawa mission was decided yesterday. You're going in first, and Genma and I will keep the general's bodyguards out of your hair."

"I know, but I reconsidered your entrance vector, and thought there might be a better way."

Kakashi raised the cup, grunted, and put it down again. "You did? That's funny, since Genma's been on leave for three days, and is probably so fucking plastered he's swallowed that stupid senbon of his by now." His voice never lost his indolent tone as he continued. "I've got to admit you make a damn good Itachi, but since you aren't the genuine article, I think you and I should leave now. Keep your hands where I can see them, drinks are on me. We're going to walk out the back, you first. Then I'm going to incapacitate you and introduce you to my good friends at the ANBU Torture and Interrogation Force. How painful this will be for you depends on how cooperative you're feeling. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

"That won't be necessary," Mikoto said, rising calmly. "I'd also prefer someplace more private to discuss what I came here to tell you." She walked to the back of the bar, Kakashi following close behind, and pushed open the door leading to the iron fire escape that zigzagged down the back of the building. The moment it shut behind her, her legs and arms went completely numb, and Kakashi caught her as she crumpled, pricking a kunai against her throat in one fluid motion. The speed at which he'd executed the kanashibari jutsu was inhuman.

"We need to talk," she said, in her own voice. "I came here disguised as Itachi for my own safety, not to trick you."

"Mikoto?" he said incredulously, his arm momentarily tightening on her bound breasts beneath Itachi's borrowed shirt. "What the hell is this?" He released the invisible bindings on her legs and arms and stepped back, although he did not return his kunai to its holster. He'd pushed his hitai-ate level on his forehead, and Obito's sharingan flashed in the lantern lights.

Still a little unsteady on her feet from the aftereffects of the technique, she released the henge, and stood with a steadying hand on the guardrail. The sharper lines of Itachi's face faded away. "Like I said, I need somewhere more private, and I'll explain everything. I _cannot _be seen speaking to you," she said urgently.

"My apartment is down the street."

"That would do," she answered. As an ANBU captain, Kakashi would be a paranoid bastard. It would as secure as anywhere else nearby, and the fewer opportunities that another Uchiha had to see her, the better.

"No offense," he said, "but I'm still not letting you get behind me. And if you try to put me under a genjutsu, I'll knock you out, and then hand you over to the T and I with a bow around your neck. Impersonating a known ANBU operative is a capital crime."

"None taken," she assured him, "and I'm fully aware of the penalty." In his position, knowing what he knew, she wouldn't have done any differently. As far as Kakashi was concerned, Mikoto was just as much of an enemy of the Hokage as her husband. "Tell me where I'm going, please."

He gave her a few terse directions, and waited for her to take the lead. She restored the henge to pass under the attention of any watching eyes. Following his instructions, Mikoto landed on the roof of a brick apartment building at the end of the block, and swung down to one of the doors on the third floor.

Kakashi's apartment was very small, rather dusty, and as impersonal as a hotel room, aside from one enormous bookshelf filled with pornography. She dropped the disguise as soon as Kakashi threw the curtains shut. Despite the tension of the situation, he managed to look embarrassed for a moment, when he saw her lips purse in disapproval at his choice of reading material. He flicked on the light and directed her to sit on the only chair, in front of a battered desk scattered with a few mission reports. He hastily gathered them up and shoved them in the desk drawer. Kakashi, evidently, did not entertain company.

He remained standing, arms crossed over his chest, radiating a cold killing intent that told Mikoto he could ensure that she did not leave the room alive. The easygoing, lazy Hatake Kakashi most people saw on the streets of Konoha had faded away. Now, she was dealing with the Hound. "You'd better have one hell of an explanation for this," he said in a low voice.

She sat straight and still, refusing to be ground down by his intimidating stance. "Can I assume," she began, "that you are aware my husband is plotting to assassinate the Hokage?"

"Yes," he said, revealing neither shock nor where he had picked up that piece of information.

"Then I will also assume that my son is playing double agent, and funneling intelligence from the Uchiha to the Hokage, as opposed to the reverse?"

Kakashi didn't answer that one. She therefore assumed that was also 'yes'. "Good. I had hoped he'd decided where his loyalties lay." Mikoto took a deep breath. "I approached you because I wasn't entirely sure about Itachi. I don't think I've ever understood that boy, and I raised him."

The intimidating silence continued.

"I came under an illusion because I can't afford to cast suspicion on my loyalties. I may have been seen when we met in the Three Orchids to discuss Naruto. There's a message I want you to pass to the Hokage for me: Itachi isn't the only Uchiha with an interest in preventing the civil war that will descend if my husband puts his plans into motion. I have the experience in diplomacy, and the political connections, that Itachi does not. Before any drastic solutions are considered, the Hokage should be made aware that knowledge of this plot is confined to the Council of Elders. Most of the clan is wholly ignorant. If I can reach them first, I believe I can keep many, if not most, of the lower-ranking family members loyal to Konoha. Individual Uchiha are powerful, but without grassroots support...Fugaku simply won't have the numbers necessary for a coup to succeed. I want to end this without bloodshed."

"In addition," she continued, "my husband trusts me in a way he no longer trusts Itachi. The intelligence I can provide will be more comprehensive, and of potentially higher quality."

Kakashi considered her words. His sharingan had been hovering on her as she spoke. She had no doubt he was adept at using it to pick out the minute physical changes that were indicative of someone attempting to lie. The tautness in the air relaxed, and he pulled his hitai-ate down over his left eye. Mikoto allowed herself a small sigh of relief. "Why would you do this?" he asked softly. "Betray your own husband?"

Mikoto felt guilt curl beneath her breastbone. Was this betrayal? To cross a man who'd crossed her first? He'd belittled her entire life as a shinobi, threatened to kill her son by blood, and was planning to turn her son by chance over to a psychopath who murdered children for pure sport. It couldn't be called betrayal. But it still felt like it.

"Because I'm a jōnin of Konoha who knows where their duty lies, same as you?" she said, with more heat toward Kakashi than she'd intended. She took a deep breath, and let the misdirected anger drain away. "I feel...I feel as though Kushina entrusted me with something, something I can't toss away. The coup will destroy what she and Minato gave their lives for. I spent so many years playing at being the obedient wife, pretending the most important things were someone else's problem. I realize now that I'm not helpless...I gave up the power to change things willingly, and now I want to take it back."

Mikoto thought she could sense some kind of approval from him, the man whose entire life was shaped by the memories of those he had lost. "I'll tell the Hokage what you told me," Kakashi said. "He will want to speak to you in person. No written records of this conversation can be made. You'll receive a message detailing when and where you'll be expected."

"I understand," she said, rising, and renewing the illusion of Itachi's appearance. She turned to the door.

"Mikoto-sama," he added, to her back. "Thank you. I don't know how he manages it, given our job description, but Itachi is still a good kid. I've never met another shinobi more committed to a peaceful Konoha than he is." Kakashi paused and exhaled softly. "He would fulfill his obligations to the Hokage even if he had to rip out his own heart to do it—and I was afraid that's where this situation was headed. The village council has been discussing contingency plans if the talks with your husband break down completely."

Her hand tightened on the door handle, and she looked back over her shoulder. "What've they decided on?"

"Decided on? Nothing, so far," he replied. "I'm not even supposed to know this, but...the Hokage and Homura-san are both convinced a diplomatic solution is still feasible, and after tonight I'm inclined to agree. Koharu-san is still on the fence, and Danzō...Danzō has been advocating for drastic measures." He fixed her with a piercing stare. "The most thorough, most drastic measures. Even the children, and by Itachi's hand."

* * *

**Glossary:**  
_Kanashibari no jutsu_ - Temporary Paralysis Technique.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thoughts:**

A couple of people I've corresponded with (I won't name names), have assumed I am male. I find this sort of hilarious. I'm guessing the confusion is stemming from the fact my story doesn't read like this:

"Naruto-dobe, I love you, even though I've professed my complete lack of human empathy—not to mention tried to kill you—multiple times," Sasuke-chan said, brushing his raven/ebony/jet black hair out of his perfect face (A/N: Sasuke is mine, if you tell me otherwise Imma cut a bitch).

His insulting, and grammatically incorrect, method of address has Naruto _sold_. "Sasuke-teme, I realize I love you too, even though _I_ have expressed considerable homophobia at various points throughout the series. Oh, please don't violate me through my anus, since I apparently can't defend myself even though I'm a ninja_,_" Naruto whimpered uke-lly, and burst into tears in preparation for impending rapeage. Then, despite both being virgins and sixteen years old, Sasuke rams his comically oversize cock all up in there with no lube. Prostates appear in anatomically impossible places, and somehow it does not hurt like the bejesus.

Because having sex with someone when they say 'no' is a healthy expression of love, and not a criminal offense, Sasuke and Naruto move in together. A month later, Naruto starts puking when he wakes up in the morning. Sasuke rushes him to Tsunade, who magically has time for this sort of hysterical crap. Although she is reputedly the greatest medical ninja in the world, her impeccable diagnostic skills tell her the logical thing to do is give a sixteen year old boy a pregnancy test.

Tsunade delivers the 'good' news, and all 500+ members of the cast cry tears of joy for the expectant parents, including the Kyuubi, who somehow made this all possible, and coincidentally gave Naruto a pair of adorable little kitsune ears.

No one addresses how he is supposed to take a shit over the course of the next nine months.

The End

ppplllzzz review ^_^

And on a vastly more serious note…here is the next chapter of _One Small Kindness: No assbabies...guaranteed._™

* * *

Mikoto could admit to herself that she was terrified. She felt like a mouse hiding between two prowling tomcats.

One was the Uchiha Council, the known quantity. Her attempts to convince Fugaku the slights against the clan had come from a source besides the Hokage had failed miserably. He'd come to hate the man, but still deeply respected his intelligence, and refused to believe someone so wise could have been tricked. The hoped-for easy resolution wasn't going to happen, and that meant she'd have to go deeper into conspiracy. One slip, and the shift in her loyalties could be uncovered, and if it was they would kill her. Not Fugaku himself, she didn't think he had the will, but his uncle wouldn't have those reservations. He would still remember the young Mikoto, the very literal spitfire, and dedicated soldier, who had so sorely tested the former Clan Head's patience.

The second was Shimura Danzō, who frightened her precisely because she knew so little about him, save that he seemed to want the Uchiha wiped from the face of the earth. He had retained a position as one of the Hokage's advisors for years, even after he 'retired' from his position as the director of ANBU. She didn't think the retirement had been voluntary. It was rumored he'd created his own division-within-a-division, a selection of the most ruthless, emotionless shinobi, from within the ranks of the elite force. Their supposed purpose was to complete missions so morally putrid even the casual murderers of ANBU had balked at them. After the Hokage discovered his one-time friend had been so blatantly subverting his authority, the organization had been disbanded (on paper), and a great deal of Danzō's official power had been removed.

But only his official power. It was analogous to lopping the flowerhead off a dandelion, and hoping the deep roots would wither before they took over the garden the next year. Not at _all_ likely.

She suspected he fought the same way she did, indirectly, and from the shadows. Their most powerful weapons were their intelligence, their information networks, and their ability to pass beneath the notice of powerful men. The problem was that Danzō had been doing it for twice as long as she had, and her primarily female gossip channels didn't extend into whatever pits most of his allies were lurking in. Her sources had the advantage of remaining largely invisible to the male population, but her information network had some serious weaknesses.

And she suspected Danzō had his own agent among her clansmen. A little bit of digging had turned up his genin team roster, and the name Uchiha Kagami. The sense of loyalty between members of that first team often lasted a lifetime, transcending barriers of blood or law...as Mikoto felt only too keenly. Kagami was in his sixties, and long since retired. He owned a bar a few streets over from police headquarters. Fugaku had been ever-so-politely thrown out of it once or twice in his youth—clan heir or not, he was a nasty drunk—and it was a favorite with the off-duty officers. In all likelihood, Kagami had been watching the Clan Council's resentment of the Hokage simmer for months, passing choice tidbits to Danzō all the while. That man seemed exactly like the type to milk such a bond as long as it was useful...and as soon as it wasn't, sever it without any regrets.

She was operating on too little information, and with too few allies. She passed the days waiting for the Hokage's messenger with her nerves almost on fire. It was far from their fault, but she was short with Sasuke, and Naruto, for no good reason. Antics that made her smile a month ago were suddenly worthy of a scolding. She began avoiding her friends in the clan as much as possible, claiming to be ill with persistent headaches. Like the best excuses it was true; the tension of waiting knotted up the muscles of her neck, until the slightest motion set her temples pounding. She could barely face the women with a smile, knowing she might have to kill any of them in the very near future. If this was what Itachi felt like day in and day out, it was no wonder he was slowly going mad. He was on a mission deep in the jungles of south Fire Country, with an unknown partner, and neglected to inform her when he might return. She needed desperately to speak with him, to reassure him (and herself) that they weren't alone in this fight.

-ooo-

Mikoto was sharing a pot of tea, and a basket of mending (in a shinobi household there was never a shortage), with Iriko when Itachi materialized at the front door. Over the buzz of the television set she hadn't heard him coming down the path, and his dampening of his chakra signature was total. He kept that guard up at all times, even in his own family's home. Even she couldn't sense his presence until he walked into the room. She forced herself to remain outwardly unperturbed. "Your mission went well, I hope?" she asked, placing her teacup down on the table, and looking over the back of the sofa. There were fresh scars over his right eye that disappeared into his hairline, like he'd been attacked by a wild animal. The edges were blistered and red, obviously some kind of chemical burn. "How'd you get those?" she asked with concern.

"The outcome was satisfactory," he said blandly. "And a rogue puppeteer." He didn't seem bothered by them; the gashes looked painful, but were well on their way to healing, and must have already been attended to by one of the ANBU medics. "I need to speak with you. Alone."

Her maid began to squirm in her seat. She was a bit younger than Mikoto, a distant cousin whose persistent asthma had barred her from attending the shinobi academy. Itachi had always made her uncomfortable, and in the past months that had transformed into naked fear. "I'm glad you're all right, Itachi-sama," she whispered meekly. "Mikoto-sama, please excuse me." She put her half-finished mending aside, and sketched off a bow, before turning off the television and fleeing.

"Honestly, I'm your mother," she said, once Iriko had left. "You're allowed to speak to me whenever you like. What's bothering you?" she asked, tidying up the cups and depositing them next to the kitchen sink. "It is Anzu-chan? I'm sure, if you took the time to explain how much pressure you've been under, she'd forgive you. She's a very understanding girl."

Itachi put his hand on her shoulder, and leaned over her fall of black hair. His voice was barely audible beside her ear. "In my bedroom. The halls are not secure."

Mikoto was very much aware. That was why she was babbling like an idiot about one of her son's many female admirers, instead of acknowledging the topic at hand. Assumptions needed to be carefully tended; she trusted Iriko to a point, but not enough to let S-Class secrets slip. She was loyal to Mikoto, but not a shinobi, and too easily bullied. If her husband became suspicious, he could probably threaten whatever he wanted to know out of her with very little effort.

She followed Itachi to his bedroom on the pretext of collecting a full load of laundry, and kept up a steady screen of inane chatter. Itachi slid the bolt home behind them, then, with his back to the door, flew through a set of handseals for a very tight sound-suppression jutsu. Instead of simply creating silence, it jumbled the speech of anyone inside the circle. It was then rebroadcast in a new configuration, creating the hum of quiet conversation without any meaning to glean from it.

He sat down on the bed, looking pensive. "Kakashi-taicho told me about your conversation. And I..." he said, and stopped. "I don't understand."

Mikoto joined him, tucking one leg under her. "Like I told Kakashi-san...I'm still a shinobi, even if I spend my day keeping house, instead of taking missions. It's my duty to identify, and eliminate, threats to Konoha if it's in my power to do so."

"You'd turn against Father? I can't remember you ever challenging him. You've never been anything but obedient to his wishes."

Mikoto allowed herself a quiet chuckle, and brushed some of her hair out of her face. "After you were born, maybe. You would not believe the fights we got into, when we were engaged. I made his father so angry with my insolent behavior he nearly called off the marriage."

His brows pinched in skepticism. "You're correct. I'm not sure I do."

She shook her head. "Nobody will talk about it, because it's too embarrassing to them. Your grandfather wanted me to quit before I made jōnin—almost all Uchiha women do—but I refused. We were still at war with Iwa, and I wanted to do my part. And Kushina wouldn't let me buckle without a fight." A flash of understanding passed over his face. He'd never been part a genin team of his own (it was part of what isolated him so completely from his peers), but he was aware of their character. "I've always liked giving orders more than taking them," she continued. "That never changed. I never spoke out in front of you because it's not my place, not because I agreed with your father's every word. I had my own ways to set thing as I wanted them. You, of all people, should know the best way to win a confrontation is often to ensure it never happens."

"Ah," he agreed. "But I still don't understand why you would turn against the clan. You have more connections than Father. Your brother, your friends..."

"Why did you?" she asked, a question that had been burning at the back of her mind for months. "It's like...like you became someone else. Even before you joined ANBU."

"To protect peace," he said simply. "No matter how hard they try to deny it to themselves, a coup would spark a fourth world war. If I can do anything to stop it, I will."

It was a shade away from being completely true. But her mother's intuition told her he was holding something back. "That's part of my reason," she said. "I served through one war. It was more than enough blood to last a lifetime. But I must admit the rest is more selfish." She tentatively put her hand on his shoulder, and to her surprise he didn't shrug it off. "Your father is willing to have you killed for the sake of his vengeance. And he was willing to turn Naruto over to the Mizukage. I'd die before I let either of those things become a reality."

Itachi had gone very still, his eyes downcast. "I'm grateful," he breathed. "You can't know how much. But don't involve yourself in this. My choice is between my clan and my village, and you must already know what I've chosen. If you truly want to help me, take Sasuke and get out of Konoha before the spring. It hardly matters how you do it, or whether you can secure permission. Sever your ties with the village if you have to, and run as far and as fast as you can. Kumo would take you in. They've always had an unhealthy interest in Konoha's dōjutsu."

"Abandon Konoha and become a rogue ninja? What are you saying?" she said, her voice gone sharp with apprehension. "When I spoke with Kakashi-san, he said the Hokage hadn't come to a decision yet!"

"He hasn't. There are greater forces at work here."

"What forces? Danzō? Another kage? Don't shut me out like this," she said emphatically. "I can't help you unless you tell me what's happening!"

"Please," he pleaded, and Itachi never pleaded. "If you love me, and you love Konoha, don't ask me to tell you that."

Mikoto pushed herself to her feet. She was angry. Furious. The Uchiha pride ran deep, even in a turncoat like Itachi, who was more like his father than he would ever admit. They knew best. They could make the decisions that affected the lives of everyone below them, and never think to ask for advice, or, god forbid, consensus. Most of all, they could never ask for help, no matter what the price.

"How _dare_ you!" she said, her voice thick with fury. "Maybe you're on Konoha's side, but you're as bad as your father. You're thirteen years old. I don't care how talented a ninja you are—you have no right to make that decision for me, or anyone else in this village, until you're Hokage!"

"I tried to find a way out," he answered dully. "For weeks and weeks it was the only thought in my mind. But I cannot bring the Hokage or the Council into this, or both sides will be destroyed. Either the Uchiha die, or all of Konoha. There is no choice."

"No," she shot back. "I refuse to believe that. There's always a choice, even if your eyes can't see it. You're intelligent, but you're not infallible. What if someone else has the answer you were groping for? Would you refuse to take that risk? For your cherished pride you're willing to sacrifice your _entire clan_?"

Itachi winced away from her tirade, like it was a physical blow, before that old hollow expression returned. He rose. "Mother. Get out of my room," he said, his voice level but completely dead.

"No," she said, shaking with rage. "I won't. There are good men and women in our clan. They're as loyal to the Hokage as I am. There are housewives, and servants, who've never worn a hitai-ate. There are little children. Babies. Would you kill them to save Konoha?"

"I will do what is necessary," he answered.

"You think I won't?"

"I will say this one more time. Get out, or I will remove you."

"I have resources of my own," she continued, ignoring the threat. "And with, or without, your help I will find out who issued this ultimatum. Perhaps the Hokage will be able to find the answer in Kirigakure."

"You will not go to Kiri," he ordered. "If you do you will damn us all."

Since when did he give her orders? ANBU may outrank jōnin in the general mission pool, but he was a _thirteen year old boy,_ and there was no way in hell she was going to let him speak that way to his mother. "You'll have to stop me, then," she said. "Here and now." Mikoto felt her feet sliding into a fighting stance, and her sharingan flamed into being along with Itachi's. He had never seen it before; she had only been the gentle mother to him. Never the shinobi. "Could you do that, I wonder?" she asked, with vicious calm. "Strike down your own mother in cold blood?"

They stood tense and silent, their sharingan locked for long moments. Mikoto felt some of her rage beginning to unknot itself, the deeper she looked into his eyes, then more, and more, until she couldn't even remember why they'd been arguing. Her fingers relaxed, and her hands dropped slowly to her sides. And why was her sharingan on? What could possibly possess her to...

Mikoto forced out a breath between clenched teeth, and tore apart the cobwebs of false memory with a mental shiver. "You will _never_ do that again, do you understand me?" she said harshly.

Itachi's eyes narrowed. He had not suspected she would be mentally agile enough to shake off such a well-crafted genjutsu—but there was a lot about her her children didn't know. "That was for your own good, Mother," he said. "It would have been easier."

"For 'my own good?'" she repeated. "Since when did _you_ become _my_ keeper? Do you think I've gone senile at thirty-five?"

Itachi ignored her question. "Since you are so insistent, we will do this the other way."

In close quarters, she was no match for him, and she knew it. Her eyes tracked his leap, but her legs were too poorly conditioned to dodge it. He kicked her feet out from under her, and grabbed her arm as she stumbled, twisting it behind her back. She was forced to her knees. Her eyes caught the glint of a needle between his fingers, and a fraction of a second later she felt it prick into the tenketsu point below her ear. She was utterly at his mercy. He could thrust the senbon in, and paralyze her, break her neck...anything he chose to ensure her silence. All she could do was breathe, and listen to her pulse throb in her ears. She almost screamed with the tension, but bit down on her lip to keep her silence. Had she misjudged him? She knew his will was steel, cold and unyielding, but he was her_ son_. That emotional distance he had created between himself and his clan was his shield from the horror of what he believed he had to do. She had knocked that shield aside with one blow, but was it enough? He had first killed at the age of eight, and then again, and again, and again. What was one more sliver of metal into one more woman's neck?

And then...then the needle's prick drew back, and the grip immobilizing her wrist relaxed. The senbon chattered against the floor. She hardly dared to breathe, until Itachi took three steps back, and hit the wall with his palms open and slid down. She pushed herself up, and turned on the balls of her feet to look at him. His eyes were closed, and she saw them moving beneath the lids, as if replaying the scene inside of his head. "Madara," he whispered hoarsely. "The man who ordered me to wipe out the Uchiha was Madara."

Mikoto felt something drop out from beneath her. Itachi was an excellent liar, but he did not spin tales, and was almost impossible to deceive. "Madara was killed a hundred years ago," she said, if only to reassure herself. "And even if by some miracle he survived the battle at the Valley of the End, he'd be long dead of old age by now."

Itachi opened his eyes, and slowly shook his head. "The Shodai only thought he was dead," he said. "Madara survived, and went into hiding, to regain his strength. During that time he must have discovered a jutsu to prolong his life. They do exist—when Orochimaru was banished he had nearly succeeded in creating one. Madara has spent the last hundred years manipulating the kages like Suna puppet masters towards a goal I still have not been able to tease out of him, although I do know destroying Konoha is one of his many aims. He has been spying on us for years, on _me,_ using Kiri as a screen. The Yondaime Mizukage, Yagura, is completely under his control."

"The spy the police caught this summer...?" she whispered.

"One of Madara's," Itachi confirmed. "And only the beginning. He made contact with Father, posing as one of the Mizukage's agents. This agent is the one who gave the impression that Kiri would lend their support to the new regime."

"Who else knows?" she asked, dazed by the blow to her reality. Madara was one of the most powerful shinobi to have ever lived. That his will was directed against her family was almost too evil to contemplate.

He shrugged, unsure. "In Konoha, probably only the two of us. In Kiri, the newest of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist is aware that he's the true Mizukage. I don't know his name, but he carries a sharkskin sword. Madara had me spar with him to display my abilities. There were others, but I don't know from which villages. I gathered they were all rogue ninja. He is collecting the strongest of them, from all over the continent."

She slipped out of her crouch, and tucked her ankles under her thighs, her head bent in shock. "I can't...why did he encourage a coup if he ordered you to destroy the Uchiha?" she asked. "It doesn't make sense."

"He's insane," Itachi said shortly. "The only thing he hates more than the Senju are the Uchiha who took their hands in friendship. He believes we are traitors to destiny, and that it's his duty to correct this transgression. But when Father sent me to Kiri he saw in me a worthy pupil, and his plans changed. Originally, he wanted the coup to succeed, and in doing so Konoha would have destroyed itself. He would have had Kiri pull out at a critical time, and Kumo would have overwhelmed us. I agreed to abandon the village, and follow him, only if he spared it. It was all I could do to convince him, in return for revenge against the Uchiha. He's still bitter we turned on him when the village was founded." Itachi looked up at her, the anguish she had felt from him for once written plainly on his face. "As I am now, there's no way I have the skill to kill him. All I can do is follow him, and hope that in time I can learn his weakness, or at the very least provide Konoha with inside intelligence about the rogue ninja he's assembling. Now do you understand my choice?"

Mikoto couldn't even answer. Everything she thought she knew had been torn away, to reveal a future so bleak looking into it made her throat ache with tears of horror. Who _could_ hope to stand up to Madara? Even the Shodai Hokage, a man of incredible power who had fought him in the prime of his life, had failed to kill him. Their battle had rent the earth itself, gouging a new path for the river separating the Land of Fire from the Land of Rice, and scorched the earth for miles around. He'd come so close, but, in the end, had failed.

She raked a hand through her hair, her eyes squeeze shut. Intellectually, she knew Itachi had made the right decision, putting the lives of many before the lives of a few. Logic before emotion.

And not only would Itachi be sacrificing his family, he'd be consigning _himself_ to a lifetime of indescribable suffering. Once he completed his...task, and joined Madara, there would be no going back. Some had whispered that he was truly the epitome of what an assassin ought to be, that his cold demeanor was because he truly felt nothing like love, or pity. But beneath those layers upon layers of ice, she suspected, just as his teacher Shisui had suspected, that Itachi had a gentle soul. He _did_ love his family. He loved them more deeply than they would ever know, and the last thing they would ever see were his eyes blazing with madness as he struck the killing blows. He would be reviled as a traitor, a butcher, a monster. Down that path, he would be joining what would likely become the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world, and subsume himself completely in what he loathed above all else.

All for Konoha. And there was nothing she could do to save him.

"Yes," she whispered. "I—" She stopped. Drew in a sharp breath. There, hovering at the edge of her mind, she could make out a glimmer of hope. She cast herself towards it, desperately. If Madara was still as powerful as he was a hundred years ago, why bother using Itachi and the Mizukage? Why cower in the shadows? Wouldn't he want to deliver his vengeance with his own two hands, if he had the strength to do so? "Did you ever think," she said softly, "that Madara is manipulating _you_?" Itachi's brows knit in doubt, so she forged ahead before he could disagree. "I _know_ you. I know how much you love Konoha. I know how much you take on your own shoulders, to spare the people around you. And I think Madara knows this too."

"What if he's maneuvered you into keeping this secret, not because he plans to wipe out all of Konoha himself, but because he _can't_? What purpose could keeping a promise to you serve for him? You told me yourself—you couldn't hope to defeat him in single combat. If he's as immortal as he seems, he'd be able to find a more willing student eventually. It would be more logical for him to pursue Sasuke, who has the same potential you do without the independence. What if he's counting on your keeping his survival a secret, because he wouldn't be able to overcome the full might of Konoha working against him?"

Itachi swallowed convulsively, looking more unsure than she'd ever seen him. "If you're wrong, Konoha will be obliterated."

"That is true," she answered. "But even if I am...it's not a question of if, but _when_. What would stop him from returning for the rest, once the Uchiha were executed, and you had fled?"

Itachi's eyes lost their focus, as if he was look far into the future she had described. Rogue ninja did not usually lead long lives. They were always running, forever hunted, unable to place their trust in anyone, or anything, but their own wits and blades. "Nothing," he whispered after long moments. "Nothing at all."

At least he had the grace to look ashamed. "I was sure I was beyond his reach. I should have known it was beyond my power to convince him of anything."

"If I was in your place...I'm not sure I could have realized it either. Sometimes it takes another pair of eyes, looking in, to really see the truth."

He raised his head, a real spark of feeling returning to his face. He got to his feet, and offered her his hand to rise. "I'll tell the Hokage immediately. Your audience with him will be tomorrow, at midnight. Pay a visit to the Nara pharmacy at two, and tell Nara Yoshino-san you're picking up your prescription. In the bag will be a scroll, with your gear sealed inside. Change on the way, where you will not be seen. When you approach the Hokage's tower another agent will accompany you inside as if making a report. Father will be otherwise occupied, and I will ensure Shisui is nowhere near the Uchiha district."

"Understood," she said, and glanced at the door. "Iriko will be wondering what happened to me."

"I know," he said. "Things should not appear to change between us, or Father will become suspicious. I still will not be able to speak to you freely...but there is more you need to know about what we're going up against."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Do you know of the secret room below the floor of the clan shrine? Were you shown when you mastered your sharingan?"

Mikoto shook her head. "For a kunoichi to gain a third tomoe is an embarrassment, not an accomplishment. This is the first I've heard of it."

"The trapdoor is hidden beneath the mats, seventh from the far right. It contains the only written record of the secrets of the sharingan, and the history of the clan before the village's founding." He looked away for a moment. "You won't like what you'll see. The heartwood of our clan is rotten. The Elders have always secretly aspired to follow in Madara's footsteps. He told me many have tried."

"I can go tomorrow, before the meeting," she said, and added: "You were shown when you became a jōnin, weren't you. And all this time you thought I knew."

"Yes," he said. "I regret my mistake. It would have made things easier to know someone—" he shook his head. "It no longer matters now, but there is one more thing: if you truly care for Uzumaki Naruto, you should know that Madara is after the Kyūbi. This is not the first time he's tried for it."

"Naruto?" she said, caught off guard. What did...and then Fugaku's ranting all came back in a rush. The man in the white mask, and his crimson eyes. Danzō _hadn't_ been lying. Madara must have taken the opportunity to attack Konoha when the current jinchūriki was in labor, and her husband too preoccupied with maintaining her seal, to adequately defend the village. It was Madara that orphaned Naruto; Madara that murdered her mother and her twin brothers. He made all the widows, the motherless children, the brave shinobi that survived, but would never walk, or see, or speak again. The homes destroyed, the shrines desecrated.

In her chest rose a savage desire to find him for the sole purpose of ripping his throat out with her bare hands. It was a white heat that eclipsed the comfortable old hatred she had nursed for the Kyūbi. He was a man, not a demon whose very nature was destruction. Men had choices. And he had chosen to destroy hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives for no gain but his own. He, of all people, ought to be taught suffering, and she could be the...

"Mother!" Itachi said sharply, taking her roughly by the shoulder, as the wave of loathing crested and broke around them. "Hatred is a dangerous tool. I need you to promise me you will not go after him for your own vengeance."

"You know he killed my—" she began, savage.

"I know exactly what he's done, and it's more than I've told you. But you said yourself—the only way to defeat him is by working together, and an avenger fights alone. If you take that path he _will_ kill you." Itachi drew her eyes into his. "Sasuke is going to lose his father before this is all over. I don't think he could bear to lose his mother as well."

"I..." she began. The choice was like a rasp against her heart: lose her change at vengeance, or leave her sons orphans. It was frightening how tempting the second option was, and it disgusted her how much consideration she was giving it. "I won't," she said finally.

"Look me in the eyes and swear it."

Mikoto licked her lips, and deactivated her sharingan. She was still a shinobi of the Uchiha, and they lived and died for vengeance. But she knew now that counted for less than she'd always been taught. If Itachi could hold his hatred in check for the people that depended on him, so could she. Sasuke and Naruto needed her. "I swear on my mother's grave. I will do my best to put an end to Madara, whether or not the final blow is mine."


	11. Chapter 11

I'm not usually a review whore, but I'm almost in the triple digits, which is a first for me. Come on baby, give it to meeee...or I WONT POST THE NEXT CHAPPIE GUYZ!

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...just kidding.

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...probably.

Come on, I'm writing fanfiction, I can indulge my inner narcissistic thirteen-year-old now and then.

Although I mock, honestly...I really wasn't much better. The only difference between me, and the current crop of teenage fanpuppies writing horrible self-insert fanfiction, is that when _I_ was thirteen, FFN didn't even exist yet. This precluded me from inflicting Tiana Aria Xia McSparklytits, Jedi Knight (or whatever the hell I named that particular entry in my Mary Sue parade) on anybody else. Yes, I am that old.

**Beta'ed by NamelessPower.**

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Keeping up the clan shrine was the Head's wife's duty. Amidst everything else, Mikoto was overdue. She left her sandals on the stones, and bowed once before the open doors; she was asking the ritual permission of the spirits of the dead to enter their house to seek counsel. The interior was mostly bare wood, with an altar at the back, and a small hidden closet for extra incense, candles, a few moth-eaten meditation pillows, and some cleaning supplies. The only decoration was the fan symbol painted on the walls. She replenished the consumables on the closet shelves from the small box she brought with her, then took out the broom to begin half-heartedly sweeping the floor clean.

It was a place for quiet reflection, meditation, and mourning. Or it was s_upposed _to be. Whatever Itachi had seen here had soured his opinion of the elders past the point of salvageability.

Her chores complete, Mikoto lit a stick of incense, and knelt before the altar. She pulled four photographs from a fold in her kimono, and spread them over the dark wood. A ten-year-old Obito showing off his brand new hitai-ate. Herself as a little girl, holding her baby brother in a sling, the twins standing behind her with a protective hand on each shoulder. Her mother and father, beaming on their wedding day. Her mother's parents, sitting on the mansion porch, smiling down at the newborn cradled in her grandmother's wrinkled hands. She placed her palms together in prayer. She was here to seek guidance from her ancestors.

And she was terrified that one of them in particular just might answer. She had more to fear than most, perhaps, that Madara's taint had somehow lived on.

She was, after all, his great-granddaughter. Not in the official genealogies, tended by the old men who carefully put everyone in their place, no. The Uchiha were more obsessed than any other clan with the purity of their ancestry, and in their books she barely even existed. In their accounting of the world, Madara had died before he produced an heir. But she knew better. When a nameless camp follower appeared at Konoha's palisade, beside a little boy with raven-black hair, a sharingan, and the power of a grown man...the Uchiha took her in. They called her a filthy whore behind her back, but they took her in. She told that boy, in secret, who his father had _really _been, and the truth of it was passed down from generation to generation, an open secret among the clan.

She took no pride in that knowledge. To Mikoto, it was the greater shame that she was descended from a patricidal lunatic than a poor and desperate peasant woman. She was no great believer in destiny, but the niggling idea that she shared one with Madara was something she couldn't discard out of hand.

Was it true? Were they all cursed? Did some seed of evil lie dormant behind their crimson eyes?

Shinobi made hard choices. Their very livelihood depended on bringing pain, and even death, to often innocent people. She herself had done so. The Uchiha were very good at it, but that wasn't evil. The sharp blade was no more or less cruel than the dull; they were both tools. How a thinking, feeling person wielded those tools...that was a different question. Sometimes her clansmen came back from their missions looking as haunted as their teammates at the bloody work of their own hands. Sometimes they came back wearing smiles of cruel triumph. They were people, good and bad.

What _was_ evil, then? Lust for power, to oppress rather than protect? Vengeance without justice? Destruction without creation? If that was so, she had nothing to fear. The people in front of her had venerated none of those things, and they were the truest of the Uchiha, direct descendants of Madara himself.

Mikoto gathered up the photographs, and stowed them away, then barred the door with her broom. She lit one of the tapers she'd found in the storage closet. In the flickering candlelight, she peeled up the seventh mat from the back of the raised altar platform to reveal the bare wood beneath. She knocked experimentally to find a hollow. There was none, it was too cleverly concealed, but her sensitive fingers found a small catch at the base of the wall. She flicked it forward, and a section of the planking popped up a fraction. Using a kunai as a lever, she pried up the heavy trapdoor, to reveal a set of stone stairs descending into utter darkness.

It was dry and musty, and the stale air made her cough. Her candle illuminated another room beneath the main shrine, stone instead of wood, and clearly very old. There were seal tags pasted on the walls, and they flared violet as she passed, probing her. They seemed satisfied with what they found, since the two old braziers before her suddenly flared to life to welcome her further into the chamber. What they burned she did not know.

Before her was another altar of plain grayish stone, flanked by a mural of two fearsome winged beings with fiery swords. The inscriptions on the front were indecipherable. Above the altar was a framed square of yellowing paper, which she _could_ read, although the full meaning of the words eluded her.

_For a thousand years, we have kept this knowledge. The eyes of the unfavored son may look upon it, and learn the secrets of his power. When he has set his feet upon the cursed path, he may look yet deeper. Only the eyes of his father may see all and know all._

Mikoto puzzled over the short message. The last line could refer to the Rikudō Sennin, who, if myth was to be believed, possessed a dōjutsu so powerful he could be called a god. His eyes could see anything and everything, force demons to their knees, bring back the dead, and warp reality itself around his will. But no story she had ever heard had painted him as a father, and besides, that's all they were—stories. There was no historical evidence the man himself had even existed. Only the bijū had lived long enough to remember that misty past, and they would never tell the tale of their subjugation willingly.

The top of the altar was covered in the strange script as well, although the chisel marks were not so worn with age. In the center was a circle, inlaid with red jasper and onyx, in the shape of three tomoe. She activated her sharingan, and looked again, and as she did the stone tomoe seemed to spin along with her own. The random jumble of strokes rearranged themselves into words. It was written in code, a code only a sharingan could perceive, and interpret, in its entirety. It read:

_The sharingan is awakened for the first time when a son of the Uchiha looks upon a god of death, and sees his face reflected in its eyes. But it is only mastered when he becomes that god, and one whom he dearly loves looks into his eyes, and sees their death there. _

_In the left eye, a weapon to obliterate the minds of all your enemies. In the right, a weapon to obliterate their bodies. From both springs the shield about you that no weapon may pierce._

_It is power born of pain, and pain will be the price paid for its use. Like the grief from which it came, it will devour the sunlight of your world, until all that is left to you is darkness. _

_This is the Mangekyō sharingan. I was not the first and I will not be the last. _

There was much more she couldn't read, the characters hovering on the edge of her comprehension. But she could decipher the last line, which read:

_Uchiha Izuna, Year 897 of the Age of the Rikudō Sennin._

Sickened, she withdrew the chakra from her eyes, and the inscription dissolved into unintelligibility. Izuna was Madara's younger brother, his second-in-command, and the beginning of the line of clan leaders that currently ended with Shisui. She understood now. This secret had been Itachi's initiation as the heir to the Uchiha clan, when he was given the rank of jōnin at thirteen. Implicit in this revelation was the suggestion to seek out this power, and lead the Uchiha to glory as Madara and Izuna had done. Madara, who, it was said, had murdered his own father, and after being stricken blind plucked out his own brother's eyes in a desperate attempt to heal himself. There could be no trust in such a clan, if you feared those closest to you. To protect yourself from your own family, murder would always be on the forefront of your mind. Love was a liability, not an asset.

How many of the Uchiha had chosen this path? How many of those names carved on the memorial stone had actually been felled by their own kin?

Mikoto doused the candle, and fled the shrine, barely stopping to kick the tatami mat back over the entrance to the secret room. She threw a cloak of genjutsu over herself that rendered her invisible, loathe to stop and speak to anyone.

She only removed it when all the pressure of the chakra around her had ceased, and she was truly alone. The training field in which she finally stopped was rarely used, untidy and overgrown. It was dominated by an enormous fig tree, the spread of the branches easily enough to cover the area of a small house. She sat down in the crook of one of the buttressing roots. A ring of stones had been set around the trunk, most already toppled from below by the tree's growth. She brushed the moss from the carving with one hand, revealing the mirrored trees of the Senju clan symbol. This must have been one of Hashirama's. According to village legend, the valley in which she now lived had once been a battlefield, all the growing green long burned away by the fires of neverending war. The Shodai had very literally created the village, causing sheltering trees to sprout where none had grown for a hundred years—the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

His clansmen were free of the taint that plagued hers. The Senju died for each other, not by each other's hands. That was their Will of Fire. How comforting it must be, to be able to trust so deeply, and it had served them well. There were very few left that carried the Senju name, but it was a product of success, not failure. They had never been so fanatical with the purity of their blood, believing their strength lay in diversity. The clan split, and grew, and split again, and never lost the unity of that ideal.

More may have the Uchiha name, but their number were dwindling. And what united them, beyond arrogance and powerlust? Madara seemed to believe that's all there was, and need be. How many had followed him?

Mikoto let her head drop against the entwining roots. They shielded her from the worst of the wind, like a little girl nestled in her grandfather's lap. Had the _Shodai_ known the secret of the sharingan? How his rival achieved his power? The truth was lost to history, but it was possible that he did. He was a great general, and very wise; little would have escaped his notice. And still he extended his hand in friendship to the Uchiha. Perhaps he saw more honor in them than they saw in themselves. The thought thawed some of her shame, and she looked up into the branches. Maybe Hashirama believed in them, believed they could resist that temptation.

She finally let herself smile. Some had. Her twin brothers had both mastered their sharingan. They must have been taken to the altar, and read what was inscribed there. And yet they were inseparable, the younger going so far as to follow the elder into death when he was killed by the Kyūbi. She herself could never do it. She loved her sons more than anything, even power. Even Fugaku and Shisui had—how they had bristled when Fugaku's uncle had suggested Itachi be eliminated, agreeing only under duress. A Mangekyō sharingan might even have been enough to tip the balance of power irrevocably in the Uchiha's favor, and still...even fanatics, it seemed, had limits.

A few had undoubtedly followed Madara down that path. Most hadn't. Even with power aplenty, a life lived with that pain always in your heart wasn't worth living.

-ooo-

Her heart was still heavy with worry and unanswered questions, but she had a mission to complete. Stealthily, she worked her way back to the village center in time to make the rendezvous at the Nara pharmacy. She greeted the clerks, and asked for Yoshino, the head pharmacist. They were playground acquaintances, not really friends, and whenever Mikoto saw her she seemed to be scolding her son Shikamaru for something or other. He was in Sasuke's class, and according to the boy's mother was as unmotivated and lazy as Sasuke was driven, only one place above Naruto in the class rankings.

The harried-looking woman emerged from the back wearing a pharmacist's coat, and an old rank badge, proclaiming her to be a chūnin medical specialist. She motioned Mikoto over to the private alcove used for patient consultations. "Here you are, Uchiha-sama," she said, handing Mikoto a plain white paper bag. "I'm sorry about the wait; it's getting into flu season, and we're swamped here."

"Thank you, I understand," she said. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you and Shikamaru-kun at the playground again soon."

Yoshino leaned over the counter, letting the bland smile drop. "I don't know what's going on between the Hokage's Council and the Uchiha," she whispered. "But it has my husband as worried as I've ever seen him." She straightened, and continued in a louder voice. "I hope you'll be feeling better, but if you don't mind I need to go back to counting orders."

Mikoto said her goodbyes, paid for the 'medicines', and left. Once home, she pulled the small scroll from the pill bottle, and slipped it into a secret compartment of her jewelry box. Naruto and Sasuke had shown up a little while after she did, the blond boy ravenous as usual. He started shoving the snacks she'd prepared in his mouth as fast as he could, while Sasuke looked on with distaste, and nibbled on his share. Mikoto left them, and withdrew to her bedroom, lying down on top of the quilts.

Her head was pounding with the accumulated tensions of the last few days. Once she met with the Hokage, there would be no going back. Herself against Uchiha Madara. She could only pray that her guesses were correct, and he really was just a bitter, broken old man.

She heard soft steps on the stairs, and Sasuke peeked around the sliding door. "Mom?" he asked, hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I am," she said, sitting up. "Where's Naruto?"

Sasuke didn't look convinced. "Still stuffing his face," he said, and padded into the room. "I'm not that hungry." He heaved himself onto the bed next to her. "First it was Itachi, and now you're acting funny. If it was something I did, I'm sorry..."

Mikoto cut him off by wrapping her arms around him, and squeezing him tight. "You've never disappointed me, Sasuke."

For a brief moment he relaxed against her chest with a blissful sigh, at least until he heard Naruto knocking around downstairs. He wiggled out of her embrace. "Jeez, Mom, don't do that. Naruto might see."

"I wouldn't worry about it," she said with a faint smile. "I still hug him too."

Sasuke snorted. "Well, he's younger than me, so I guess it's still okay." He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and paused before jumping down. "Are you sure you're not sick or something? Shikamaru's mom said you went to their pharmacy today."

"It's just for the headaches. Nothing serious," she assured him. "I'd like to lie down for a while, so if you could train with Naruto 'til dinner..."

"Okay," he said, taking the hint. "He flunked the last kata test _bad_, but I think that's 'cause he kept pouring mud in Mizuki-sensei's coffee. Maybe we can work on the next set?"

"That's a good idea," she agreed. "Sometimes the best way to learn something really well yourself is to try to teach it to someone else."

Sasuke slipped off the bed, and flicked off the light on his way out. "Feel better, okay?"

-ooo-

A good while after Naruto had reluctantly wandered home, she got Sasuke into bed, later than usual. He'd worn himself out trying to keep up with Naruto in their practice, and was yawning hugely. He probably wouldn't be waking up in the middle of the night, but she couldn't take any chances. As she was tucking him in, he took one look at her whirling sharingan, and fell back against the pillows with a gentle thump. A few handseals afterward ensured he'd be out for hours. She could at least make sure he had pleasant dreams.

Mikoto retrieved the scroll from her jewelry box, and stole into the night. She took the long way round, looping in a wide arc around the Hokage's tower. In the shadows of a backalley stairwell she pulled the scroll from her vest pocket, unfurled it, and pressed her thumb against the scanning seal. A viper mask, a cloak, and a photograph of the woman she was impersonating appeared on the ground. She stood and performed a henge; there was a small swirl of smoke as her dark hair became short and pale green, and her slender figure filled out to that of a stocky brawler.

On top of the henge she wove another genjutsu, a chameleon skin that made her nearly invisible against the star-studded sky. She resumed her trek to the Hokage's office, taking the rooftops like an ANBU agent would. As she approached, she could feel their eyes on her, but the attention was curious, rather than threatening. She landed silently on the roof to wait, and dispelled the genjutsu. Another agent stepped out of the shadows of the hornlike columns to guide her inside. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but the loose, unruly curls above the badger mask looked very familiar. She stilled her anxiety, and probed a little deeper. The gentle fluttering of affection against her chakra sense was even more so. "The Hokage is expecting you," he said simply.

She smiled behind her mask—this was the first good news she'd had in what felt like an eternity. It looked like Yūhi Daishiro had returned from the Land of Lightning in one piece. She felt a stab of annoyance he hadn't told her before now, but it likely wasn't his fault. Contact between ANBU members and herself was risky, and even under better circumstances she'd seen him only rarely these days. Mention of his name made Fugaku squirm with poorly concealed jealousy.

Daishiro led her down the stairs, and through faintly lit hallways, to an inner audience chamber she'd never seen before. She dropped the henge, and shook out her hair. Before he opened the heavy wooden doors, he placed a hand on her shoulder. "It suits you," he whispered. "For what it's worth, I think you could have made it in."

She entered, knelt on the thin mat in front of the Hokage's dais, and bowed. The room was very simply furnished, and the walls stained with years of pipe smoke. He was sitting cross-legged in the center, completely alert despite the late hour. His tall, white-haired student was lounging against the wall, as well. That she hadn't been expecting. As far as she knew, the Toad Sage had just retired, and was spending the rest of his natural life writing dirty books and getting kicked out of onsen. Perhaps, he wasn't nearly as retired as he wanted Konoha's enemies to believe. She'd never spoken to Jiraiya much, aside from the generalized shrieking that went on whenever he was discovered within spitting distance of the women's baths. The 'dirty old man' act grated on her nerves, and, while Kushina and Minato were still alive, she had avoided him as much as possible. Still, he had survived at the forefront of two wars, and that meant he wasn't nearly as much of an idiot as he made himself out to be. He had traveled widely, and his information network was probably superb.

"Sandaime-sama, Jiraiya-sama_,_" she murmured.

"Take off the mask. I want to see your face," the Hokage said, not unkindly. Mikoto reached up to pull it off. She let her sharingan blaze, not as a threat, but as a marker of her identity. She was loyal to her clan, and to her village. They were not mutually exclusive. "Mikoto-san. I would like you to tell me why you are here."

Mikoto set the mask aside, and folded her hands on her lap. "Konoha is my home. The Uchiha are my family. I want to help you protect them both," she said. "But before we continue...I humbly request that you dismiss your bodyguards."

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed, reappraising her. There were two other men in the room, ostensibly invisible. She had caught their metaphorical scent as soon as she'd stepped through the threshold. "You can have me searched first, and my hands and eyes bound," she offered. "I'll tell you anything you want to know, but I must be sure that information doesn't wander."

The Hokage considered her proposal briefly, and motioned the guards to leave. Jiraiya stayed where he was, openly suspicious. She did not request he leave as well; there was no way he was in Danzō's pay. "Thank you," she said demurely, once the two chakra signatures had faded away down the hall. "Shimura Danzō is still respected in certain circles, and it's my understanding he is attempting to use the Uchiha rebellion to further his own aims."

The Hokage's wrinkled brows creased even further. "You are well-informed, aren't you."

"Women gossip," she said with a slight shrug.

He chuckled softly. "What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at one of your tea parties. Hardly anyone besides Jiraiya, and a few handpicked ANBU captains, are officially aware of that."

Mikoto bowed her head, still demure. "People confide in me," she answered. "The Uchiha trust me. That is why I believe I am in the best position to solve this through diplomatic means. None of the clan outside of the council members, and their families, are aware a coup is being planned beneath their noses. Many of the peripheral families are of the same mind I am. They are loyal to Konoha, and loyal to you, and have no love for the clan council. The positions are inherited; they feel shut out of their own governance, and would welcome the opportunity to chose new leaders who truly respected them."

"That is...interesting," he said. "Extremely interesting. Go on."

"My proposal is this: let me begin contacting the Uchiha who have the most to lose from a coup. I may not be able to convince them all to actively fight the council's plan, but even to take them out of the battle would be a victory for our side."

'_Our_ side'. His thin lips turned up at her choice of words, and he nodded in agreement. "If you succeeded in swaying the majority, you would have my neverending gratitude," he said. "I have served beside many Uchiha, and have only respect for them, the recent unpleasant developments aside. I dreaded having to send Konoha shinobi against each other...although my entire council disagrees, and in such cases I can be overruled if there is an imminent threat to the village."

"I heard as much. Although I thought Homura-san agrees with you. That should have made it two against one."

The Hokage looked troubled, glancing away for a moment. "He _agreed _with me. It was rather odd, really. He doesn't usually fall on Danzō's side in situations like these, but after they came back from..." he shook his head.

"You know Danzō is actively subverting your authority, don't you?" Mikoto said, frowning. "I'm sure you were curious why the talks with my husband broke down, even after the concessions you made? It was because _someone_ was intentionally sabotaging relations with the Uchiha."

"Yes, I know," he said sadly. "I've suspected for a long time, and Itachi told me exactly what you have. But even he could find no tangible proof it was anything beyond administrative incompetence, and without that there's no way I can convince your husband my word is still worth something."

"Then I assume he's also briefed you on the interference from Kiri, and the circumstances behind the Kyūbi's attack?" she asked.

"He has," the Hokage said, the earlier good humor fading completely. "And I must say even I find this prospect frightening, although it explains a great deal. This is pure speculation, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn Madara has initiated some sort of alliance with Danzō. He was always too ready to compromise the long-term safety of his village for a short-term advantage, even when we were young."

"Mm," she agreed, with an apprehensive pinch of her lips. "Madara knows how to use that kind of flaw. He seems to be playing for every side simultaneously, so whoever wins...so does he."

That was what made opposing him so damnably difficult. He was so old, and so canny, you could not help but suspect any move you made was playing right into his hands, especially after having seen how thoroughly he'd manipulated someone as perspicacious as Itachi. But he was not omniscient, and living her life as she had might even have been to her advantage. He couldn't account for every variable, and maybe, just maybe, one mild-mannered housewife had fallen beneath his notice.

"We may have an intellect on our side to match his, although the man is still fairly young and hasn't the experience," the Hokage continued, and dropped his eyes sadly. "I realize the rest of my council, and most of ANBU, cannot be trusted." He looked up again and smiled slightly, with a reassurance that warmed her soul. "But this will be a battle of wits, not might, and numbers don't count for everything. With the weapons at hand, I believe victory is a strong possibility."

"Anything I can do to help you, I will," she said. "You need only ask. Madara is a threat to every soul in Konoha, no matter who they've pledged their allegiance to."

"You do realize," he said, "that what I ask may cause you a great deal of pain? Itachi has collected enough evidence to mark your husband as a traitor three times over. Even if you succeeded in keeping the majority of the clan loyal to me, his past actions cannot be excused. I realize he is being influenced by Madara, but even that is damning...it means there was already a base for him to build on."

Mikoto looked down, and swallowed hard. "I said what I meant. Anything." She paused and exhaled shakily. Her wedding vows were subservient to the oath she'd taken when she accepted her hitai-ate, and although she no longer wore it, the words would bind her forever. This was what being a shinobi meant. If he'd asked her to turn against someone she truly cared for, like Sasuke, it would have been a more difficult decision, one she wasn't sure she could make. Fugaku may have been her husband, but it wasn't as if she _loved _him.

"But in return, I have a request," she added.

"Go on."

"Can you guarantee Sasuke's safety if the diplomatic solution fails?"

"Itachi has already requested this as his price. Consider it done."

"Then I have another," she said, on impulse. "If the rebellion is suppressed, and I survive, I would like to formally adopt Uzumaki Naruto as my son. I realize there may be resistance to this. I'm sure you can smooth it over."

Jiraiya snorted, and joined the conversation for the first time. "You were on Kushina's genin team, weren't you. Under Sakumo."

"Yes, sir."

"And you really care about this kid?"

"I do," she replied, with pure conviction. "Naruto, he...he _changes_ people. I know it may seem odd, but if it hadn't been for him, I might not be speaking with you right now. I understand the reasons behind keeping him ignorant of the circumstances of his birth, but he doesn't deserve to be an outcast, and that's something I can change."

Jiraiya and the Hokage exchanged some silent communication, ending with a faint nod from the sannin.

"It wasn't my first choice, either, but after the Kyūbi's attack…there was simply nowhere for him to go. I couldn't place him in the care of one of the shinobi clans, or the balance of power would have been severely upset," the Hokage explained. "You may make yourself some enemies on the Jonin Council, but your request is granted. I'll have the papers drawn up."

"Thank you, sir," she said, bowing very deeply.

"No," the Hokage said gently. "I believe it is I who should be thanking _you_."

* * *

**Glossary:**

_Rikudō Sennin - _the Sage of Six Paths aka Ninja Jesus.


	12. Chapter 12

**Thoughts:**

I would like to reassure any concerned parties expecting my weekly updates that I have not, in fact, died. I was at my girlfriend's parents house with no internet access, which is almost, but not quite, the same thing.

I'm back on LJ after a significant hiatus: digitaltart . livejournal . com . Expect fic previews; fanart; recs of awesomeness; babbling about ninjas, anime I am watching that isn't Naruto, feminism, racism, miscellaneous other isms; and pictures of pugs their owners have dressed up as Pakkun. Because ARGHGLGARBLE SO CUTE BRAIN HAS MELTED.

* * *

Mikoto's most important task now was finding allies. Collecting them would be perilous, but she had a good idea where to start. The hierarchy within the Uchiha clan was neither as formalized, nor as fraught with tension, as it was within the Hyūga. But the differences in status were there, and in skillful hands could be exploited. The clan head and his council were always chosen from the same three lines, regardless of personal merit. They were those who could claim direct ancestry from the great generals who led during the chaos that predated the founding of the hidden villages. There was resentment smoldering among the 'lesser' families, whose members were no less capable, but still shut out from positions of leadership within their own clan. As she'd told the Hokage, Mikoto would be able to find friends among them. Some had turned their energies to gaining status outside of the clan structure, becoming respected teachers or diplomats. As a result, their sense of connection, and belonging, to the village as a whole was far deeper.

Her own marriage to Fugaku was a hollow offering of peace that changed very little for those have-nots. Mikoto understood only too well what it meant to be shuffled aside in the 'greater interests' of the clan, seeing promotions handed down, gifts bestowed, and favors done that benefited no one but the elite. The Uchiha were an old clan, and had old money, and set a portion of that aside to help members with unexpected expenses resulting from sudden deaths or accidents. That had been the _idea_, although to no one's surprise it rarely played out that way in practice. Somehow there just wasn't enough in the coffers when a neighbor's son was crippled on a mission, and she was forced to resign her position at the mission office to care for the boy. Or after another couple's baby was born deaf, and they couldn't afford the operation to restore her hearing. The elders enjoyed petty displays of power far, far too much, forcing those they perceived as inferior to plead on their knees for something that ought to have been given freely.

And one incident struck particularly close to her heart. A terrible windstorm two years ago saw a tree crashing through the roof of the home her youngest brother Yuji had recently purchased with his fiancee. Fugaku wanted him begging for the repair money, like a dog for a scrap of meat, and even Mikoto's pleading hadn't softened him. Yuji refused, and had to take extra missions outside of his police patrols, while his wife ran herself ragged with extra shifts at the hospital, to get it fixed before the winter rains descended. He remained as outwardly polite to the clan head as ever, but there was an unmistakable undercurrent of hostility in their every interaction from that point forward.

That was why Mikoto was standing on his porch, about to tell him a secret that could very well get him killed.

For all of the harping over 'keeping the bloodline pure', the children of strong Uchiha didn't necessarily follow in their footsteps. Yuji, the baby of her family, was at best an indifferent shinobi. As a teenager, he had professed a desire to move to Otafuku Gai to pursue a singing career. The idea horrified their parents, was mercilessly crushed, and into a desk job at police force he went. His problem hadn't been a lack of skill, but rather an overabundance of compassion—killing disgusted him, for any reason. He had been the oldest to activate his sharingan, and was still a chūnin at twenty-eight, nothing for most shinobi to be concerned over, but a mark of complete incompetence among the Uchiha. Mikoto had made jōnin at sixteen.

He did his best to make up for his merely average performance record by being intensely charming, with varying degrees of success. He had never managed to win over his brother-in-law, for one. Since the falling out two years ago, they waged a series of petty battles over family and police matters, which Fugaku won substantially less often than he would have liked. Yuji wasn't much of shinobi when it came to pure combat prowess, but what he_ did_ know how to do was talk, and he had refused to bow down to Fugaku. For this mission, that was exactly what she needed.

She glanced at the scrap of paper proclaiming the doorbell to be unreliable, and knocked smartly on the door. This was his day off, and she knew he was home. There was no answer. She knocked again, louder and longer, and got the same response. She closed her eyes, and focused her senses past the door. She could feel someone inside, their chakra fizzing with irritation. She sighed, and backed up, until she was under his bedroom window. "Yuji, it's me," she called up. "Would you get out of bed? I know you're there."

After a few seconds, the shutters opened. "_You_ would, wouldn't you," he said muzzily, scrubbing at his eyes. He was shirtless, and very much needed to shave. His face had an almost feminine delicacy to it (of which he was deeply embarrassed), and he'd grown a sparse beard in an attempt to lessen the effect. "Gimme a break, I had a long night. I'll be down in a minute."

Mikoto returned to the front door, stuffing her hands under her arms, while she waited in the cold. He opened it after the promised minute, now draped in a robe, and invited her inside to wait while he got properly dressed. His home was small, cozy, and indifferently clean; his wife was a civilian nurse, and worked long hours at the hospital. Since he looked like he needed it, she put some water on for the imported coffee of which he was so fond, and found some dusty tea in the back of a cabinet for herself.

He came back into the kitchen as the kettle began to whistle, and perked up a little at the promise of caffeine. Mikoto distributed the hot water, and brought her cup back to the kitchen table. He slid he elbows against the counter top, lounging against the lip next to the coffee press.

"I need your help," she said, without preamble.

His brows creased a little at her grim tone, but he smiled at her anyway. "Anything for my big sister," he said cheerfully, although the top of her head would barely reach his chin if they were standing side by side.

She returned that smile, although it had gone cold with concern. "Do you mean that literally?" she asked. "Because I might have to take you up on it."

He immediately straightened out of his slouch. "What's going on?" he said, his eyes narrowing. "Did something happen between you and Fugaku? If he hit you—"

"No, he hasn't. Not…physically," she answered. "The problem is bigger than our marriage. Much, much bigger. I came to you because I know how much you hate him."

Her bluntness gave him pause. "Oh. Well…he's my brother-in-law," he said, making a token effort at defending the family harmony. "Hate is such a strong—"

"That will be the last lie you try telling me today," she said, as her dark eyes went crimson. "Do you understand?"

"I...yes," he stuttered, taken aback. "Perfectly."

She'd succeeded in frightening the flippancy out of him. It was time to reveal as much of the truth as she could. "I know why they've been watching us," she said. It was not necessary to elaborate on who. "It's for good reason. The Uchiha Clan Council is planning to overthrow the government of Konoha, a move that would leave the village crippled, and ripe for attack. Stopping them is an S-Rank mission issued by the Hokage himself. I volunteered to select the team."

Despite his mediocre mission record, he wasn't stupid. His eyes went wide, and he ran a hand through his shoulder-length black hair and turned away from her. "So you chose me, because you knew I'd never betray you to Fugaku. Shit," he muttered to the cabinets. "Shit, shit, _shit._"

Mikoto waited patiently, through the increasingly heated stream of profanity, as he processed the revelation. He'd never cared much for responsibility, but even less so for war. He had been hastily promoted to chūnin solely to fill in Konoha's lines on the Iwa border, and survived his deployment by luck alone. The atrocities he had witnessed—and committed—punctured his buoyant artist's spirit, almost driving him into an alcohol-soaked suicide. He was eventually rescued by the gentle hands and emphatic words of the nurse he later married, but Mikoto knew war was not something he would ever willingly face again.

"Are you finished?" she asked, when the expletives had finally trailed off.

He pulled out the chair opposite her, and slumped into it, his coffee forgotten. "Yes," he said, staring intensely into the whorls of the wooden tabletop, then glancing up into her eyes. "I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but it's yours. I don't think I'd last long in a Konoha under Fugaku's thumb. How much can you tell me?"

"Not much," she said, apologetic. "Only that the Hokage himself has no ill will against the Uchiha, and believes preventing a coup is in the best interest of _both_ sides. Most of the political pressure against the clan is coming from other sources."

"I guess this explains why we've had ANBU breathing down my department's collective neck for the last three months," he said. "I could've sworn the Hokage had it out for us, and I couldn't figure out why. Came out of fucking nowhere. Some of the policy changes that trickled out of the tower...you'd think he was _trying_ to piss off the entire force."

"In a way, that would be true, although it isn't the Hokage himself who's guilty of it. The village council learned of the coup this summer, and certain members have never thought kindly of the Uchiha," Mikoto explained, although she carefully did not mention who. Yuji could work that out on his own. "They exploited the opportunity. If the clan elders had been more willing to listen to the Hokage, and I mean _really_ listen, we wouldn't be in this position. Instead, they've decided to force all of us into treason. They weren't even going to tell the peripheral families, until preparations were already underway."

Yuji snorted. "Why am I not surprised? We peons get to do the bleeding while the Elders sit back and sip their tea, I'm guessing? That's usually how this shit works out."

"Fugaku didn't give me the impression it would be any different this time," she said. "But the _Hokage_ is doing his best to avert a civil war...and is more than willing to reward any Uchiha committed to this goal."

"That means...we get S-Rank mission pay for this?" he asked, hesitantly. They didn't usually talk openly about money, but he wasn't the most careful hand with a ledger, and she knew he had racked up his share of debt. The fee would be an enormous sum, at least a million ryo. Usually S-Rank missions were given only to experienced jōnin within the ANBU Black Ops. Often, they carried at least a fifty-fifty chance the operative would not return. She didn't have to say it aloud, but this one was just as dangerous.

"Naturally," she assured him. The money wouldn't have clinched the deal, but would go a long way toward convincing him of the Hokage's good intentions.

"All right," he said, sighing heavily. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need names. People in the police force who agree with you, whether they know it or not, and have a reason to want the council gone. I'll be assembling them as well, mostly the women. At my order, and not before, I'll also need to plant doubts the coup will be as bloodless as Fugaku believes. Don't frame it as a question of loyalty, but survival. Being a loyal citizens of Konoha doesn't mean we stop being Uchiha."

-ooo-

She had managed to pry out of Fugaku the date of the clan meeting at which he was to reveal his plans, and it gave her damnably little time. She and Yuji would have to work very fast.

In the days that followed, her brother played his part well, coaxing intelligence out of his fellow officers without giving away the reasons behind his innocent questions. He put conscious effort into avoiding as much on-the-job responsibility as he could, and was perceived as too much of an incompetent by his superiors to be guilty of much underhanded scheming. It also helped that he had an obscene tolerance of strong drink, and a fat wallet (courtesy of Mikoto), with which to loosen their tongues. There was more resentment smoldering among the police than she would have guessed. Promotion was not always, or even often, based upon merit. The junior officers had to kiss the right boots, in the right order, for their superiors to suddenly recognize their talents. A few had grown disgusted, and quit to rejoin the general pool of active-duty shinobi. Most hadn't, even if they dreamed about it. The blue star of the police force was almost as much a touchstone of Uchiha identity as the sharingan. They resented their inequitable treatment, yet couldn't leave it without leaving behind part of themselves.

For her part, she concentrated on their daughters, sisters, and mothers, ferreting out half-remembered grudges and insults. Many of them were victims of the same stifling traditions that she was, their skills and talents tossed away to raise families they weren't ready to have. Not all the clans operated this way, despite the Uchiha elders' insistence that breeding more little Uchiha was the be-all and end-all of a woman's life. Among the Senju and its branches, kunoichi retired when they were ready, whether that was eighteen or fifty-eight.

With Itachi as their messenger, lists of names were brought to the Hokage, combed over, revised, and finally settled upon, with only two days to spare. The conference would have to be held at Yuji's home, small as it was. It was much too dangerous to assemble the conspirators under her own roof.

-ooo-

Mikoto trailed her eyes over the assembled group. Each one had been chosen with care. All were current or former shinobi. All had been wronged by the Uchiha elders. Itachi knelt at her right side, and Yuji on her left; for this phase of the mission, she was their captain.

"I have asked you here for a purpose," Mikoto began, pitching her voice low and commanding. "It has recently come to my attention that certain elements within Konoha have grown dissatisfied with the leadership of Sarutobi Hiruzen. The leader of this rebel faction is putting into motion a plot to assassinate our Hokage and his Council."

Gasps rippled across the room, rebounding off the screens. The Sandaime was well loved, and under his rule Konoha had prospered. He had made his mistakes, like any leader, but in the eyes of nearly all his people the victories outnumbered the defeats. Many of the assembled shinobi were older, and remembered his leadership during the Great Wars rather than the trifling insults being flung at them in the present.

"The ANBU Black Ops has been notified of this?" one of the jōnin asked, his eyes flicking to Itachi. His dark hair was well into gray at the temples, and he had guided half a dozen genin teams into Konoha's higher ranks. He was also very well informed. Itachi's placement in the elite squad had not yet become common knowledge.

"Yes," Itachi answered for her. "The Hokage's personal guard has been aware for some time. The leader of the coup is politically well-connected, and as such the suppression of this rebellion cannot be accomplished through force alone. That is why we have assembled here today."

"All of you are respected, and above all loyal to Konoha. That is why I've chosen to share the identity of their leader, in the hope that you can aid me in keeping him from converting any more shinobi to his cause," Mikoto said. Around the room, heads nodded. "What I am about to tell you may endanger your lives, and the lives of your families, but is critical to the continued survival of Konoha, and possibly the autonomy of the entirety of Fire Country. If you cannot accept this responsibility, leave." There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and a few covert glances darted around the room. As she predicted, no one did. She smiled approvingly at the assembled Uchiha. "Before I continue, I will need each of you to look me in the eye, and repeat the oath of loyalty you took when your accepted your hitai-ate. Yuji?"

Her youngest brother got to his feet, and crossed from his place, to kneel in front of her. This was more than a formality, and everyone in the room knew it. She activated her sharingan, and drank in the details of the assembled clansmen, every nervous twitch and sigh. The Uchiha eyes were most famed for their use in combat, but they were equally adept at picking truth from lies, in the tiny gestures the body couldn't conceal. As a genjutsu user, who relied on reading the emotional, rather than physical, reactions of her opponents, she was exceptionally observant.

Yuji bowed once, and began to speak in a clear voice. "As a son of Konohagakure I swear to faithfully defend the Land of Fire from all enemies; to complete my missions to the best of my ability, unless by my sound judgement I believe doing so would bring harm to my village, or my nation; and will obey all orders of my Hokage, and those captains he has set over me. If by my life, or death, I may serve my village, I will do so." He rose from the cushion in front of her, and returned to his seat. Next, a tiny older woman named Sayori stood without hesitation, trembling against her walking stick from some old injury. She had served directly under Hatake Sakumo in the campaigns in Suna, where she had been known simply as 'The Dragoness', and almost single-handedly incinerated a quarter of the Puppet Corps at enormous risk to her own life.

When she hobbled back to her seat, the next came up, and, one by one, every Uchiha repeated their oath. One by one, Mikoto's heart lifted. All of them were telling the truth, without reservation. When they promised to live and die in the service of Konoha, they meant it.

"Thank you. All of you," she said. "I trust your discretion—what I am about to reveal is an S-Class secret, and cannot be allowed to leave this room without the approval of the Hokage. The leader of this coup..." she bowed her head and gathered her courage, "...is Uchiha Fugaku."

The assembled shinobi were too disciplined to break down into mutterings, accusations, and arguments. They were silent, waiting for her to continue, wearing expressions of pain, betrayal, or knowing sadness. "The Clan Council is under the mistaken impression that the Senju, and their old allies from the war years, are engaged in a conspiracy to oppress the Uchiha, and deprive them of the power my husband thinks we deserve. Everyone here is proof this belief is false. The Sandaime rewards shinobi who have demonstrated, _in addition to great skill_, an unwavering devotion to the ideal on which Konoha was founded. The rebels have betrayed this ideal. They never understood it. They've spit on the sacrifices our ancestors made, when they put aside hatred and vengeance against the Senju to create the first of the hidden villages. I cannot, and will not, stand by and allow the Head and his Council to split Konoha at the seams in a selfish grab for power. It will destroy us, and I do _not_ mean our clan. Konoha itself may be annihilated as thoroughly as Uzushio if an assassination attempt succeeds, and civil war breaks out in its wake. Although it may mean turning against husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, students, teachers, friends...we are shinobi. We know where our allegiances truly lie."

"The plan has already been set in motion. The Council thinks so little of you, they did not deign to _ask_ whether you wanted to be involved in treason. They are arranging a war that you, not they, will have to fight. I do not think I have to remind you when our clan has faced this impasse before." There were more nods. It was the grandparents, and great-grandparents, of these shinobi that had opposed Madara most vehemently. They were the footsoldiers, the nobodies that died and were calmly ticked off on casualty rosters without a second thought. "I know all of you have your grievances against them, and I believe it is time we cast off the last remnants of Madara's influence on our clan. His hatred has caused us nothing but pain, and it is killing us."

A few of the male jōnin and chūnin looked questioningly at her, and one by one grasped her meaning. "What are you proposing, Mikoto-sama?" the youngest of the jōnin officers asked, a man in his late teens with a line of silver studs in his ears.

"The Uchiha Clan Council is our enemy, as well as the enemy of the Hokage. He has sworn to do the utmost to protect any Uchiha that stand with him, and listen sincerely to any grievances we may have. He knows how valuable the sharingan is to Konoha, and how much the Uchiha have sacrificed for the common good. All he asks is that we allow his men into the district without opposition, to arrest the traitors. I realize the trust between the two sides has been eroded by recent developments. As a gesture of goodwill, he will allow an Uchiha officer to join every ANBU team, to oversee the arrests, and to ensure that no innocents are harmed if it can be at all avoided. Anyone who chooses to accompany the ANBU teams will not be required to participate directly in the action, but..." she paused. "I believe many of you will wish to do so regardless."

It was Uchiha Anzu that spoke up next, the chūnin that had been nursing a crush on Itachi. Her vivid aquamarine eyes were lowered in thought. Although they were beautiful, they held no latent sharingan, a failing the Clan Council had taken pains to remind her of at every opportunity—despite her excellent mission performance. "Once the Head and Council have been removed…who'll take their place? Shouldn't that be part of this discussion as well?"

Mikoto had been anticipating this question, although didn't expect someone so young to ask it. No wonder she was after Itachi. He was one of the few teenage boys in Konoha that wouldn't have any trouble keeping up with her intellect.

"You are correct," she told the young kunoichi. "I suggested to the Hokage that the current system of inheritance be scrapped, and he wholeheartedly agreed. All of you are here because I value your intelligence and experience...and I believe it should also be applied to choosing our leaders. Any Uchiha shinobi of tokubetsu jōnin rank, or higher, may submit themselves as candidates for a council seat, and the candidate pool will be voted on by everyone over the age of sixteen. Active-duty shinobi or not," she added, catching the eyes of a few of the seated housewives. "If a member dies, voluntarily retires, or becomes otherwise unfit for this duty, an election will be held again."

"And the Clan Head himself?" Anzu asked.

"Roughly the same way we chose a kage," Mikoto answered. "He may be appointed by his predecessor, but that appointment must be confirmed by a majority vote by the chūnin and jōnin. The position will no longer pass from father to son without a check," she said, and looked to Itachi.

"As such I would no longer be Heir, a position I am more than willing to relinquish," he said. "I believe the Uchiha would benefit from a leader with more experience than myself. In this current case, all eligible clan members ought to vote for who will take my father's place."

There were a few minutes of murmuring, as her clan members conferred with each other, and the tone of their whispers was promising.

"I believe I speak for everyone here, when I say this is more justice than I ever expected in my lifetime," Sayori finally said. "If the Hokage stands behind it, I stand behind the Hokage. Until the time comes for him to act...what would you have us do?"

"Nothing overt," Mikoto cautioned. "The clan-wide meeting will be held in two days time, as most of you know, and my husband will reveal the plans for the coup there. I want you all to attend if you can. Sayori-san_, _Genmei-san_, _Kinjiro-san_,_" she said, nodding at each in turn, "as war heroes your concerns about the coup will be given greater consideration than most. I want you to raise as many as you realistically can. Everyone else, stay on the quiet side, but watch for me. I need to know who else is likely to stand with us if fighting starts."

* * *

_And as promised to Snowecat, my 100th reviewer, an omake of cuteness and filthy children:_

"I have three questions for you two," Mikoto said to the boys in front of her, her hands planted on her hips. They made little sticky 'squitch, squelch, squitch' sounds as they shifted nervously from side to side. "Where did you find this stuff, to whom do I owe the apology, and how did you get so much of it in your _hair_?"

"We didn't," Naruto insisted. "It found us! We were sparring in Training Field Nine, minding our own business, and all the sudden—"

"After everything you've pulled, you expect me to believe you 'minded your own business' into six liters of sugar syrup?" she asked, every word dripping with incredulity.

"We _really did_!" Sasuke insisted. "I tried to get him out with my wires, but then I slipped, and it dries really fast, and…" He let out a little moan and pressed his knees together. "Can you please get our shirts unstuck? I really have to pee!"

Being a master of Cleaning Up Sticky Children no jutsu, Mikoto did, although the battle was not without its casualties. They included, but were not limited to: two pairs of boy's ninja sandals, the good fabric scissors, a whole bottle of soap, and Mikoto's last nerve.

"Go to your room," she ordered her damp (and still slightly tacky) son, after the two boys had finally been scrubbed to her satisfaction. "You're grounded until I get a confession."

"But he's telling the—" Naruto began.

"You too," she said.

"But it's halfway across town!" he protested.

"Go. To. Your. Room."

_-ooo-_

_Meanwhile, at the ramen bar…_

"You remembered to disarm all your trip-lines this time, right?" Iruka asked Izumo.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, as a steaming bowl of noodles was placed in front of him. "You've been working at the Academy, for, what a month? You already sound like our old sensei. Safety first, blah, blah, rules, blah, I remember when you used to be cool."

"I'm still cool!" Iruka objected, loudly enough to make the other patrons turn their heads, and then continued in a less strident voice. "But…you _did_?"

"_Yes_. And besides. It's not like I left live explosives all over the place. They were all just gum traps. What's the worst that could happen?"


	13. Chapter 13

**Responses to Anonymouse Reviewers and various other questions:**

_Wil_—_One Small Kindness_ will end after the point in canon where the Uchiha Massacre would have occurred. The sequel (working title, _Daybreak_: _Part I_), will pick up where the manga started. The focus shifts away from Mikoto to Team 7—Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura, and ~*Mystery Sensei*~. I'm about halfway in, I think? I write everywhere at once, like a highly literate, hyperactive chimpanzee, so it's sort of hard to tell final word count.

_Kail420 & everyone who's curious_—The only halfway significant pairings in OSK are Mikoto x her jackass husband, and vague references to the awkward blowjobs she gave to her former genin teammate Yūhi Daishiro. Naruto x Sasuke is not to be (because they're about seven, among other reasons), here or in the sequel. I don't dislike this pairing in principle, but it's really hard to pull off believably, considering one of the participants seems REALLY straight, and the other is an emotionally stunted wannabe-homicidal maniac. Every example I've ever found reads like a grocery store romance novel drenched in equal parts sugar syrup and semen. If anyone can recommend a fic that does this well, I would be happy to read it purely for the novelty value.

* * *

The first meeting proceeded exactly as Mikoto had planned. Sayori's performance in particular was splendid. She was even smaller than Mikoto, and looked like a strong gust could whisk her off her feet, but she spent the meeting scolding Fugaku like he was a headstrong schoolboy again. Short of physically removing her from the meeting, Fugaku couldn't get her to shut up, and he couldn't do _that_ because none of his officers wanted to be guilty of muscling off a (usually) sweet-natured granny in front of the entire clan. Genmei and Kinjiro, who had both led divisions in the war with Iwa, opposed him from the standpoint of tacticians, attacking with cold logic while Sayori took the emotional appeal. In the eyes of the Council, it was a disaster, and Fugaku ranted at her for the better part of an hour after the meeting had dispersed. She quietly took it all in, murmuring her sympathies whenever he paused for breath.

All three old troublemakers were very purposefully _not_ invited to the next gathering, but that didn't have much of an impact. The damage had already been done. Objections were bubbling up from other sources now, ones she and Yuji hadn't even contacted directly. Fugaku's list of allies grew thinner every time they convened, but still, enough remained that it wouldn't force him to change his mind about the coup. Mikoto had hoped for—but not expected—such a thing. There was only one way they would be able to head off the plan entirely without bloodshed.

And that was to get Shisui on their side. He would never betray his clan, but if he could be convinced that the Hokage was not his enemy, and the coup would do them more harm than good, he would drop his support. He was popular with the younger generation, and commanded the respect of the elder. If he turned his back, many...enough...would follow.

Itachi and Mikoto were alone in the house, one of the few times they could speak freely. Her husband usually preferred formalities, addressing Itachi in one of the bare traditional rooms. The implications to his son were very clear. Speak only when spoken to, keep your head down, and do not dare to disagree. Since their secrets had been spilled, Mikoto always talked to him over the antique wood of the kitchen table, and two steaming cups of tea. It was incongruous, perhaps, to be discussing the progress of an S-Rank mission in her kitchen, but Mikoto didn't need the trappings of authority to get him to listen. She already had Itachi's respect.

"I have to try now," her son said, in his usual level tones that masked the gravity of the subject they were discussing. "Father will be naming the members of the assault teams next week, and Takuma-san_'s_ death will have made him more vulnerable."

Uchiha Takuma, Shisui's father, had finally succumbed to his long illness yesterday. His son's position on the Council was now official. It was what they'd been waiting for, as macabre as that was. Shisui was trained to bury his emotions like any shinobi, but the death of a parent, coupled with the assumption of his council member's responsibilities, would be taxing his composure to its limits. There were few he could turn to for support, and Itachi, although distance had grown between them, was one of those people. If his trust could be won, it would be now.

"Agreed," she said, reluctantly. When Itachi had proposed his plan a few days ago, she had initially opposed it. It would put an end to their problems in one fell swoop, but it put the loyalist faction at terrible risk. "But while we can hope he'll listen to you...we can't expect it. I know how fond he is of you, but that may not be enough. If he perceives you as a threat to the clan he'll try to arrest you, and if he tries to arrest you..."

Itachi's hands tightening on the slick surface of his cup. "Neither of us will yield."

"Being forced to fight your own teacher is terrible thing," she said, gently, "and beyond that, secrecy is of the essence. There is so much hinging on the outcome. If he overcomes you, all of the loyalist leaders and the faction itself would be in terrible danger, and Danzō might succeed in pushing through his final solution, damning us all."

"I know," he said. "But if I can turn him, I guarantee Konoha will know peace, without seeing the Uchiha turn on each other." Mikoto nodded. They'd already had this debate several times, and in the end she'd ceded victory to Itachi. Although none of it breached his uncanny calm, the persistence of his arguments told her he was desperate to save Shisui, even though it could cost him his life. "I'm not trying to dissuade you. I only...I want you to be careful."

"And I will be," he assured her. "I've already requested he meet me at the yakitori restaurant across the street from the hospital. He will be coming from the mortuary and will be mostly unarmed. Our sake will be drugged with tanglefoot; I've already started on a course of the antidote, and by the time we meet its effect on me will be minimal. Before the worst of the symptoms set in I'll lead him to the river and speak my peace. If he doesn't listen, his vision and coordination will be too heavily impaired to make good use of the shunshin. Even without the element of surprise, I won't be far outmatched."

Itachi looked past Mikoto's face, out the window to the bare branches scratching at the overcast sky. "If the worst-case scenario becomes a reality, I'll need you to head him off before he can report everything to Father. It's no secret you've been suffering from 'headaches' lately; if you needed to retire early from the discussion, it would not arouse too much suspicion."

"Even drugged, I'm not a match for Shisui on my own," she told him, shaking her head. "He's the worst sort of opponent I could face. Most of my genjutsu would be useless on him, and I'm not as young as I used to be. Even when I was, I had barely a fraction of your ability in close-quarters combat."

"Ah, but _you_ would have the element of surprise. He half-suspects I am disloyal, but does not harbor the same doubts about you. Also, he knows you are a chakra sensor. His first thought will be that you blundered into a fight searching for me, not that you are an assassin. Offer to heal him, since he will undoubtedly require it, and overwhelm his pathways with medical chakra before he can stop you."

Mikoto turned his plan over in her head, probing it for any weakness. It was cautious, as he always was, and relied on his deep understanding of his opponent's psyche. Actually fighting Shisui herself would be suicide, but his plan would not require any exchange of blows. Once he was unconscious, it wouldn't be difficult to kill him without leaving behind the signs she had done so. Her assassination jutsu of choice did just that, a tiny, tightly controlled raiton technique that wrecked havoc with the beating of the heart without damaging the flesh above it. Only an autopsy would reveal his death was a murder, and Yuji could ensure one was never performed, or the results falsified. The police would be forced to conclude that they'd gotten thoroughly drunk, quarreled perhaps, and fallen from the bridge. The Nakano was swollen with snowmelt at this time of year, and peppered with jagged rocks. Every decade or so a child, or a genin undertaking a dare, would ignore the warning signs about the swiftness of the current, and drown. The water was too swift-moving to use chakra to gain a foothold, and even a shinobi as experienced as Shisui would have difficulty pulling themselves out in the darkness, without assistance.

"I can't find any fault with that," she said. "Although I think we ought to have a medic nearby, if either of you were to require it. Taking you or Shisui to the hospital would raise too many questions. Ishimaru would do it, if I asked him."

"Your old student?" Itachi said, dubious. "I would prefer an ANBU medic."

"ANBU is compromised," she pointed out. "Beyond Daishiro, Kakashi, and Yūgao, we can't rely on anyone else to keep this from Danzō. Ishimaru knows what he's doing, and I trust him."

"Very well," he said. "Yuji-ojisan's home is close enough to the bridge. I can only hope his skills are not necessary, but if something goes wrong, have your medic wait there."

-ooo-

On the face of it, the clan was gathered to mourn the passing of one of their honored elders. Every Uchiha shinobi still outwardly loyal to Fugaku had packed into the main hall of the clan shrine. Young and old sat side by side, from the fresh genin to jōnin on the cusp of retirement. Mikoto sat silently behind, and to the right of, her husband. Her eyes were downcast, and her face a mask of obedience. Even allowing for those few members whose duties had pulled them away, they would barely fill half of the large room. The numbers of Fugaku's supporter were dwindling.

The empty places had not gone unnoticed, especially the seats on the raised platform reserved for the heir and the third member of the Elder's Council. The assembled Uchiha were looking pointedly at the empty cushions, rumors spreading through the room like a contagion. Fugaku was prevented by propriety from pacing, while he waited for his wayward son and his teacher, who ought to have been sitting in the late Takuma's place. He had half-expected Itachi to do something of the sort, but Shisui's absence was a total surprise, and it had thrown him off. Her husband was a shinobi, and could control his temper when he was forced to do so, but Mikoto could almost see the rage rising like a heat mirage from his broad shoulders.

With the last of the stragglers had slipped in, the heavy doors of the shrine were closed and bolted. At Fugaku's signal, four senior genjutsu specialists, seated at each corner of the room, began the seals for a wide-area barrier illusion, their hands flashing through the complex chain in perfect synchrony. Although the Hokage's viewing glass would be obscured by it, he had ordered the ANBU observing the 'memorial service' not to even try breaking the genjutsu Mikoto warned them would be in effect. There was no need. She adjusted her sleeves, and flicked the tiny switch on the tape recorder secreted in the voluminous material. A chakra transmitter seal would have had been able to record every treasonous word much more clearly, but, with so many sharingan in the room, it was too dangerous. There was something to be said for doing things the civilian way now and then, with transistors and batteries, instead of ninjutsu. Most shinobi held such devices in contempt, believing their abilities to be far superior, especially the Uchiha.

When the barrier team had finished their work, Fugaku quieted the uneasy muttering with a wave of his hand, and expectant silence settled over the room. "You know the true reason we have assembled here," he rumbled. "But let us have a moment of silence before we proceed."

Cloth shuffled in the silence as all lowered their heads in prayer. Takuma had been a hard man, and was not well liked by the peripheral families. Still, it would not do to disrespect the dead in their own house, and no one interrupted the solemn quiet. When Fugaku judged that respects had been paid, he raised his head and brought his palms to rest on his knees, everyone else following his example.

"Our time here is short, so I will come to the point," he said. "Our victory is nearly at hand. After careful consideration, I have selected the shinobi who ought to take part in the final mission. Those chosen will spearhead the assault on the Hokage's tower." There was an expectant rustling from the gathered Uchiha, as Fugaku began intoning the names of the chosen fighters and their team configurations. All eighteen of them were close-combat specialists, most upper-level chūnin or new jōnin, and on the younger side. Two were her men, as insurance. It was unlikely the assault teams would reach the tower, and with her forewarning the Hokage and his Council would not be there, but she wanted to plan for every contingency.

"Hajin-san_,_ Ike-san_," _Fugaku said, looking down at the two brothers in the second row. "You will use your centipede summons to plant remote-trigger exploding tags inside the wall paneling of the council meeting room, when you deliver the next set of police report summaries."

"The action itself will take place two days later, as the village is preparing for the festival to celebrate the Niidaime's birthday. All of the council members will be present in Konoha, and, as is tradition, will gather to recognize the shinobi with the best mission performance record of this year. There will be large numbers of people coming and going as the festival vendors check in, and various preparations are made to accommodate the crowds. After sundown, it will be a simple matter for you two to get within range, and activate the tags. The rest of you will mingle with the crowd until you receive your signals. The ANBU sentinels will be focusing their attention at the gates, not at the tower. Teams One and Two will enter the tower through the breach and confirm the Council was killed, or complete the task if they survived the blast. Teams Three through Six will intercept and dispose of the ANBU agents that will begin converging on the tower. Those officers not named as part of the assault teams will be focusing on quelling ground-level resistance. Your specific assignments will be distributed by your sergeant. Questions?"

One of her jōnin on the assault team spoke up. "There will be an awful lot of civilians milling around the Hokage's tower, sir."

Fugaku looked coldly at him. "Your point being?"

"It could significantly increase hostility towards us if there are unnecessary civilian casualties during the transition of power. There's no less indiscriminate method of removing the Council?"

"I second this," someone else called out from the back row.

Inwardly, Mikoto smiled, and more and more objections sprouted like mushrooms after a heavy rain. Her allies were stalling, mercilessly punching holes in the elders' plan, and dragging the proceedings on for as long as possible. They were operating as instructed; Itachi would need every second he could get.

As the discussion wore on, Mikoto led her eyelids droop, and her breathing grow shallow and quick. When it grew close to the time of her rendezvous with Itachi, she let her breath catch on feigned pain, and put her hand to her temple.

Fugaku broke off from an increasingly heated debate with a quarrelsome chūnin, when he noticed the young man kept casting concerned glances in her direction. "Are you not well?" her husband asked, too low for the others to hear.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "It's never been this bad before."

Annoyed, he called out to her maid Iriko to escort her home. Mikoto let herself be led out, hanging her head in shame for allowing her weakness to be such a disruption.

"Will you be all right, ma'am?" she asked, as they began the short walk home. "I can take you to the hospital if you're feeling faint."

"No, that's all right," she said weakly. "I have pills at home; I wouldn't want to bother the medics over something like this."

"If you're sure..." she said doubtfully. "I know you've been under a lot of strain, especially lately, with Itachi-sama being, well..." she trailed off and cleared her throat. "Being at that rebellious age," she finished lamely. Even _she_ knew that wasn't the half of it.

"I'll be fine with some rest," she said. "Itachi must have been called away for a mission, and forgot to mention it."

Iriko glanced at her skeptically. "I'm sure that's it," she assured her mistress uneasily.

When they arrived at the house, Mikoto gently shooed the younger woman away, despite repeated offers of medicinal teas and neck massages. When she finally wandered back in the direction of her own home, Mikoto shut the door behind her. She began tearing off the formal silks with as much haste as she could muster, and quickly donned something she could move more freely in.

She left a kage bunshin behind in the bed, and cloaked herself in a henge of an ANBU agent. So far from her real body, the duplicate wouldn't be very lifelike in its behavior, but as long as she was left alone to sleep away her 'headache', no one would be the wiser. She took off from the window, lightening her landings with chakra to keep curious Uchiha from investigating the lone ANBU prowling the district.

The Nakano footbridge was about ten minutes away, traveling quickly. The river provided Konoha with its fresh water, entering and exiting the village walls through reinforced grates embedded into the stone. She slowed as the babbling of the water grew louder, every sense on the alert and every nerve vibrating with anxiety. There were no sounds of battle, and she sensed no chakra signatures nearby. Their agreed-upon rendezvous point at a man-high boulder was deserted.

Her heart contracted. Itachi hadn't been able to convert Shisui to their side. Had they killed each other? Or was Shisui lying in wait for her? If the worst had come to pass, she was the last line of defense the loyalists had. There was no way she would emerge the victor in a straight fight with him. Her only hope lay in misdirection. She dropped the henge of the husky ANBU agent, and began walking along the bank as herself, making just enough noise to announce her presence.

At the edges of her perception she caught a chakra signature. A single one. It was hard to confirm, not purposely hidden, but faltering, weak. Mikoto quickened her pace.

There was a body slumped against the trunk of a willow. His head lifted, and he looked straight at her. His features were shadowed, but she recognized Itachi's dark, straight hair. She rooted her feet to the ground. This could be a trap. She sent a kage bunshin to investigate, while she remained crouched in the shadows. They exchanged a few quiet words, and the duplicate dismissed itself. The memories of their chosen password settled themselves inside her head. Shisui was dead, the act of murder washed away by the waters.

Mikoto left caution behind, and ran to her son's side. His dark clothing concealed the evidence of any injuries he'd received, but she could smell the blood on it, and his breath was coming in ragged gasps. She did not expect him to return from the confrontation unscathed. Maybe, _maybe_ he could have succeeded with the element of surprise, but that had to be sacrificed when Itachi revealed his true loyalties. "We need to get out of here. How badly are you hurt?"

He looked at her like she was a stranger. It was then that she noticed his eyes. The three tomoe had lengthened into blades, joined at the pupil. He didn't answer, looking past her shoulder at the rushing water. "He wouldn't listen to me," he said, between labored breaths. "After everything, he wouldn't _listen_."

Her eyes prickled in sympathy, for the tears he would never shed. Shisui had been first his teacher, then his captain, and finally his friend. In their own ways, they had both been working toward the same goal—the continuing survival of the Uchiha clan. She had hoped…_prayed..._that Shisui would be able to look past what he would perceive as a betrayal, and join them. The irony of it was suffocating. That Itachi would be the first in a hundred years to awaken the Mangekyō sharingan...a shinobi who wanted that power least in all the clan. There was no comfort she could offer that he would accept. Only the truth. "He's always loved the clan more than he loved reason. You did what was necessary. Please get up. If you're discovered here I won't be able to protect you from the police."

Itachi shut his eyes, as if the sight of the river stung them, and when he opened them again they had gone black. "I can't," he said hoarsely.

She pried away the arm he was clutching to his stomach, to expose a sticky patch on his tunic beneath his ribs. Mikoto clenched her teeth. Short of finding him already dead, it could hardly have been worse. Shisui had carried a dagger of chakra-conducting metal that could cut through chain links like they were cotton string, and couldn't be blocked by mundane steel weapons. Itachi was still conscious, at least, but wouldn't be for long. It would have cut too deep. "Do you expect me to leave you here?" she said fiercely. "Get up!"

"I can't," he repeated, barely audible.

She cursed. How long had he been sitting here? His eyes were unfocused, and his face slick with sweat. She was sure he was going into shock. In the time it took her to get and return he might very well bleed out even with her first aid. She had planned for this outcome, but it was an option of last resort. She didn't have any choice but to involve them.

Her training in medical jutsu was patchy, but she could at least close off the worst of the bleeding. Her hands began to glow as her chakra seeped into the wound. Mikoto focused her concentration on repairing the walls of the torn blood vessels first, biting down hard on her lip in an effort to keep herself from damaging them even further.

"I'm going to cast a genjutsu on you to disrupt your pain perception," she said. "Then we're going to find you a medic. Understand?"

"Yes," he forced out.

She looked into his eyes, and began weaving an illusion that screened out the agony radiating from his belly. Gut wounds didn't kill quickly, but they were excruciating. The physical pain, and his natural reflex to dispel any invasion of his senses, made dampening the pain enough for him to walk a difficult proposition. Even with him conscious of her good intentions, it took a few tries to make the genjutsu hold. His breathing evened out immediately when she succeeded. She draped his arm over her shoulders, and pulled him to his feet. Yuji's home backed the river, about a quarter of a mile down. It was one of the least desirable patches of real estate in the Uchiha district, being prone to mild flooding. The path along the banks was usually muddy in the early spring and seldom used, and there was plenty of tree cover. With Itachi so badly injured, making it there would be a struggle, but being seen would mean death. They picked their way around the puddles of muck, until Mikoto could see the golden glow of a light in her brother's bedroom window.

Yuji was waiting for them in the branches of a willow rooted behind the house. He leaped lightly down, and his eyes widened in horror when he saw the lengthening stain on Itachi's shirt. "Ishimaru-san is waiting for you. Everything is ready." He took Itachi's other arm, guiding them inside. Mikoto murmured her understanding, and her thanks.

His wife Kaname opened the door, and ushered them in, leading them towards the larger bedroom. She was dressed in full surgical scrubs, her mouth set in a grim line. Itachi was stumbling badly now, and even with the relief offered by her genjutsu was on the edge of unconsciousness. His legs gave out when they reached the stairs. Yuji scooped him up before he could strike his head on the banister, one arm beneath his knees and the other supporting his back, and carried him the rest of the way like a child. Mikoto followed close on his heels. When she passed the threshold of the bedroom, she noticed with a start that Hyūga Kaito was standing silently beside his sensei, dressed in the off-white surgeon's uniform. She wouldn't have involved the boy if it had been her decision, but it was clear Ishimaru trusted his discretion as much as she trusted Ishimaru's.

The bed had been cleared of its quilts, and draped in heavy plastic. Yuji laid the barely-conscious Itachi down on it. Ishimaru activated the seal painted into the material with a surge of his chakra, and strange diagrams flared to life above the bed—a mobile life support monitor, probably. Kaname got immediately to work cutting off his ruined shirt. She moved to one side, and started an IV to replenish the lost blood, while Kaito activated his byakugan and then placed two fingers at the base of Itachi's neck. He went limp, and his eyes fluttered closed.

"Will he..." Mikoto began.

"He'll be fine, Mikoto-sensei_,_" the young Hyūga said, with a reassuring smile, before pulling the surgical mask over his face. "It missed his abdominal aorta, and you got him to us quickly."

Ishimaru and Kaito knelt on either side of Itachi, conferring in clipped whispers peppered with medical jargon Mikoto couldn't understand. She stepped back against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, to let the medics work. She hadn't thought about the white-eyed boy in months, but she was grateful he was here. Here, in his element, he exuded confidence, and he worked alongside his master with practiced grace. It was strange to imagine, but he and Itachi were the same age. Although he attended it so briefly she didn't even remember that they were probably placed in the same class at the Academy. Both were prodigies, but it was Itachi, who skill was taking lives instead of saving them, that was graced with all the accolades.

"We should let them work," Yuji whispered in her ear.

Mikoto nodded, and let him guide her down the hall. He pulled the door closed behind him. "You should be heading back," he said softly. "Kaname can look after him here for a bit. When he's able to be moved, I can say I found him passed out drunk next to the river, and escorted him home."

"Would that hold with the other detectives?" she asked.

"Most of them think I'm an idiot, and, well...me doing something idiotic wouldn't exactly be suspicious. It'd give ANBU more time to clean up the site. The police won't have enough evidence to build much of a homicide case, and any tampering can be excused as me stomping around making a mess of things. The medical examiner is one of ours; I can see to it the autopsy doesn't yield anything incriminating. It's out of character for them, but grief and whisky have made men do stranger things." He sighed heavily, and rubbed his eyes. "I...I'm sorry about Shisui...I know you two were pretty close. I can't even imagine what this must be like for Itachi."

Mikoto swallowed past the lump of grief in her throat. "Neither can I." she whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

**Thoughts: **

Author spent whole week cleaning up management screwups at website-maker job. Author too burned out to make paragraph of funny words. Author go drink now.

* * *

The doorbell rang the next afternoon. Mikoto dried her hands on her apron, and was about to answer it, when her husband brushed past her. He threw open the door to reveal Yuji, in his full police uniform, holding up a very pale, unsteady Itachi by the elbow. His hair was unbound, matted with rank river mud, and he looked hungover enough to make their fictional account of how he'd spent last night entirely plausible.

Sasuke came trotting down the hall, too, but Mikoto hooked a finger in his collar, drawing him back from the door. "I wouldn't get in your father's way at the moment, sweetheart," she whispered. He let her pull him back from the door frame, and peered around the edge, with one hand against the weathered wood. He was not frequently the target of his father's rage, but he, too, could smell it in the air, and heeded her advice to hang back.

Yuji cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to bother you, sir, but I found him by the river, and, well...I thought it might be better if I escorted him home."

"Thank you," Fugaku said his voice pure ice. "But I would not want you to be late for your shift. You should be going."

Yuji released Itachi, who only barely remained upright. He bowed before fleeing the yard as quickly as he could. Itachi stepped inside, his eyes on the floor, and dropped down on the step to begin pulling off his shoes.

His father slammed the door shut behind him so hard the glass cracked. "Where have you _been_?" he roared. "You know how important that meeting was!"

"I had other commitments," Itachi said, his voice low.

"Like hell you did," Fugaku said. "Tekka-san said he saw you and Shisui drinking yourselves blind when he was on his way to the shrine. I might've expected this from you, but from Shisui? He's been a more dutiful son to me than you ever have, and now you've taken it upon yourself to poison that too? Do you have any regard for your family at _all_?"

"Like I said, I had other commitments," Itachi answered, and turned away from his father as he rose. It was not out of disrespect, but to conceal a grimace of pain he couldn't completely bury.

Fugaku growled deep in his throat, and, for a moment, Mikoto was afraid he was going to forget himself, and try to strike his recalcitrant elder son. Sasuke tensed, and she dug her fingers into his shoulder, to keep him against the folds of her apron.

The moment passed, and Fugaku managed to keep the lashing only to words. "That's all you have to say to me?" he snarled at Itachi's back. "Do you have any appreciation for how many times I've defended your behavior to the council? Did it even _occur_ to you how poorly it reflects on my leadership, if I can't command even my own son!"

"No," Itachi said. "It hadn't." He staggered towards the stairs, past Sasuke and Mikoto, and without sparing them a glance.

"You're off the final mission!" Fugaku bellowed at his retreating back. "I'm finished with you!"

Itachi let his father have the final word, and did not turn around. Fugaku stalked off in the opposite direction, seething.

Sasuke wiggled free of Mikoto's grip, and took off after his brother, his small face tight with concern. "Are you okay? Why didn't you come home last—"

"Leave me alone," Itachi said, but without any of the heat that had singed the words with his father. Sasuke let out an injured sigh, and Itachi turned briefly, taking in his stricken expression. "I...I feel like I'm going to be sick," he muttered by way of explanation, and fled.

"I'm worried about you," Sasuke whispered, but stepped back to where Mikoto was waiting, and didn't attempt to follow him. "Really, really worried."

She smiled gently down at him, turning him in the direction of the kitchen with two fingers on his shoulder. "Your brother isn't feeling well. He didn't mean it. Let him rest for a while and he'll be fine."

"Okay," Sasuke said, still subdued. He'd probably never seen his father that angry before. Fugaku's temper was short, but he rarely lost control so completely as to teeter on the verge of physical violence.

"How about some hot chocolate?" she said, with artificial pleasantness.

He wrinkled his nose at her from his place at the table, where the cat was twining around the legs. It grumbled at him, begging for treats. "You know I don't like hot chocolate," he said, flicking its soft tail absently. "You always put too much sugar in it."

Mikoto clicked her tongue against her teeth. "You know, I think you're the only little boy in the whole village who complains when his mother gives him sweets." Her teasing won a lopsided, short-lived smile. "Want anything else?" she asked.

"No," he said, and chewed on his lip for few moments, while Mikoto got the cocoa powder down for herself. "Something's gone wrong," he said. "It's been wrong for a long time, and nobody will tell me what it is."

"What do you mean?" she said, shooing the cat away, and kneeling beside him.

"That's just it!" he said testily. "You already _know_, and, no matter what I say, you're going to do that mom thing where you pretend to listen to make me feel better, and don't answer any of my questions."

Mikoto sat back, tucking her ankles under her. His accusation wasn't groundless. It hurt to lead him around like she had been, but he was much too young to be told about the resistance. "There's no point in lying, I suppose," she said, preparing to skirt the truth so widely she might as well be. "You know this all started since your brother joined ANBU."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Do you know what ANBU does?"

"They take the hardest missions protect the village. They're the best. Everyone knows that."

"That's true. Only the best shinobi are chosen to enter ANBU. But the hardest missions to complete aren't always the ones that take the most skill. They have to make very difficult decisions to protect the village as a whole. Sometimes, even hurting the people they love is an unavoidable part of their missions. For someone like Itachi, who's so young compared to his teammates, and still lives with his family, it's especially hard."

"So what father said...it's not true?" Sasuke asked in a small voice.

"No," she said gently. "Itachi cares about his family very much, especially you. It's just that he and your father disagree on what this means, whether his family or the village should come first. Your father is Clan Head, and it's _his_ job to take care of the Uchiha first. That's why they haven't been getting along lately."

"I think I understand a little better now," Sasuke said contemplatively, and then pursed his lips into a frown. "But that still doesn't tell me why he didn't come home last night, and didn't go to the special meeting either."

"Well..." she said, as if considering the question. "I know he wanted to talk to Shisui about something—you know his father's been very sick, and he died a couple of days ago. Shisui is probably having a pretty hard time right now, and your brother is one of his best friends."

"Oh, right," Sasuke said. "That makes sense, I guess. I just wish...I wish things could go back to the way they were. It makes my chest feel bad when I see Father and Itachi fight like that."

Mikoto put her arm around him, and planted a kiss on his forehead. "I know." Sasuke huffed, and rubbed it off with the back of his hand, clearly trying to prove he was much too old for such things. "Why don't you go see if Naruto wants to play? Keeping him out of trouble might take your mind off things here."

"All right, I'll do my best. It's like practice for being in the police—I've got to track down the suspect, and make the arrest, before he strikes again," he said, getting to his feet. "I hope he hasn't given the Shodai Hokage a makeover again."

"We can only hope," she agreed. "And Sasuke...I'm sure they'll work it out soon, one way or the other."

-ooo-

After the last reverberations of the argument faded away, Mikoto padded quietly to Itachi's bedroom door, and slid it open a fraction. He was in bed, with the shutters closed, and turned away from her. The borrowed clothes lay in a heap in front of it, marring the otherwise immaculate cleanliness that was the usual condition of his room.

"Can I come in?" she asked softly.

"Mmm," he grunted, already awake.

He opened his eyes, and tried to sit up, but his face went taut with pain. He lay back against the pillows with a barely audible gasp.

She adjusted the tray in her hands, and pushed the sliding door open. She stepped over the lintel, closing it with her heel. The clothes she kicked aside, making a mental note to return them to Yuji when she had the chance. Itachi's bloodied garments had already been disposed of, along with the rest of the evidence of his fight.

She put the light dinner down on the bedside table, and sat down beside him. He still looked exhausted and ill; prolonged sessions of chakra-assisted healing put a great deal of strain on the body. He was shirtless, and the sheet had slipped down to his waist in his abortive attempt to rise. Ishimaru and Kaito had done a spectacular job. Although the internal injuries weren't fully healed, the skin had been mended without even a scar to betray him.

"I brought you some soup," she said. "Do you think you could hold it down?"

His eyes narrowed, irritated by these belated attempts at mothering. "I'm not hungry."

She picked up the bowl, and held it out to him. "I didn't ask if you were hungry. Your chakra is severely depleted. Unless you think you'll throw it up, you need to eat something."

"Is this necessary?" he said coldly.

"If you eat, I'll leave you alone."

He made another attempt to sit up, more carefully this time. Mikoto put the bowl back on the table, and pulled the pillows up, to give him something to lean against. He swallowed the food mechanically, and handed the empty dish back, clearly annoyed at her for treating him like a child...and probably even more annoyed at himself for giving her a reason to.

"You should know...your aunt Uruchi found Shisui's body while she was out gathering mushrooms at the riverbank. Someone will be coming to question you soon." She unfolded the unused napkin to reveal two pale blue tablets, and held them out to him.

"What is that?" he asked, eying them with distaste. He'd never liked taking analgesics, even as a child. The amount of unmitigated suffering he was willing to endure was frankly frightening.

"For the pain. Please take them, to keep the officers from becoming suspicious, if nothing else."

He grudgingly accepted the pills, and swallowed them dry. Mikoto collected the tray, and stood once he'd lain back down. He turned his head away; pulling the blankets back up around his shoulders. This conversation was obviously finished.

She shut the door behind her, letting her fingers slip down the frame, and balling them into a loose fist. He may have survived the confrontation, if only barely, but what he said under questioning could mean the life—or death—of every Uchiha loyal to Konoha.

They'd rehearsed his answers a dozen times before the confrontation with Shisui, planning for every eventuality. Itachi accepted this one with his usual cool indifference. It had settled like snow, to cover the ugly wounds beneath. Had any of them ever healed? The pain of every life he'd ever taken, never shared, all the remorse locked beneath the ice?

-ooo-

A couple of hours later, someone knocked smartly at the door as Mikoto was heating up some leftovers. She herself had hardly any appetite, but appearances needed to be kept up. She turned off the stove, and threw of handful of utensils in the sink, using the delay to feel out the details of their chakra presence. One was radiating suspicion; the other, grief and a throat-constricting trepidation. She let out a long breath to steady herself. It looked like at least one of the loyalists had talked his way into conducting the investigation. That would make this easier. She padded to the front of the house, and slid the door open.

"Oh...Kon-san_, _Inabi-san_,_" she said deferentially. "Please come in. If you're looking for my husband, I think he's in the garden." In her head, she said a short prayer of thanks. Uchiha Kon was a respected, if not exceptional, detective, just a hair too young to start thinking about retirement. He had considered her father something of a mentor, and that bond had been enough weight to tip his loyalties to her side instead of Fugaku's. For an Uchiha he was unusually levelheaded and methodical. If anyone would be able to reign in someone as volatile as Inabi, it would be him.

"We need to talk to Itachi. Get him out here," Inabi said, blunt as always. He wasn't a bad sort, but, when he was agitated, his lack of decorum made dealing with him extremely annoying. And he obviously suspected the events of last night had not been accidental. No matter how thoroughly the Hokage's men had extirpated the evidence of the murder, the timing was too suspicious to ignore.

"I'm sorry, but...he's asleep. He's feeling really sick to his stomach, so I'd rather not—"

"No excuses. Find him."

His suspicions would have to be expertly unraveled, before they entangled anyone else. Inabi had always been envious of her eldest son, of his power, his position, his fame. His partner knew this better than many, and glanced over at him, eyes narrowed. "What is _wrong _with you?" Kon said sharply. "This isn't some drug bust in Otafuku Gai. Mikoto-sama_..._I'm sorry, but there's been an accident. We need Itachi-sama to answer some questions about what he was doing last night. As far as we know, he was the last person to see the victim alive."

Mikoto placed her hand loosely against her lips. "The victim _alive?_" she repeated, stunned. "Who?"

"Uchiha Shisui."

She let out a muffled cry, and backed against the wall, as if too weak with shock to stand. Kon took her by the elbow, and eased her down on the steps. "Find Fugaku_-_sama ,and explain what happened_,_" he ordered Inabi. "Just the facts, and for god's sake break it gently—if I hear any more of your paranoid ranting, I swear I will skin you alive when we get back to headquarters. I'll be there in a moment."

The younger man glared at him from beneath his long hair. "Yes, sir," he said, a little stiffly. He turned, and walked out of the door, towards the gardens that ringed the house.

When she judged him far enough away, Mikoto let her feigned sobbing trail off. "The tox-screen was dealt with?" she whispered.

"Yes," he answered in the same almost inaudible tone. "The medical examiner turned it in positive for extremely high blood alcohol, and nothing else. The bridge is clean too, no signs of a struggle. You know how Inabi can be...it's a murder until proven otherwise. He's never liked Itachi, and I think I can convince most of the department he's a nutcase nursing a grudge. Do you think Fugaku will...?"

Mikoto exhaled shakily, on the verge of real tears this time. "He doesn't want to believe Itachi is capable of something like this, but…he's Chief of Police. A suspect is a suspect."

She would do what she could, but the crucial first words to deflect suspicion away from Itachi were his to speak. He had been among the first of the police officers her brother had contacted. He was loyal, he was intelligent, and there was nothing she could do but trust him.

"I understand," he said. "For what it's worth, you have my condolences. Shisui was a good man—on the wrong side—but still a good man."

"Mom?" Sasuke called from the inner staircase. "Did you get the door? And is everything okay? I thought I heard someone crying."

"Go," Mikoto whispered to Kon. "I have to see to Sasuke...make sure Inabi doesn't ask any smart questions."

He rose, and followed his partner into the garden, where she could just hear Fugaku's voice rising in tones of disbelief. She didn't know what this would mean for the continuation of the rebellion. Without Shisui, there was no one the clan council could install as Hokage. It would be too much to hope for that they would back down after such a setback. Her husband was too stubborn. Perhaps he'd even make _himself_ Hokage.

Sasuke trotted down the stairs to find her still limp against the wall of the foyer. She made a show of dabbing at her eyes and nose before turning to face him. "That was two of your father's detectives at the door. There was..." she swallowed hard. "There was an accident. Shisui's body was fished out of the river this morning. He was seen drinking with your brother yesterday. Kon-san thinks he passed out on his way home, and fell over the rail of the Nakano Bridge."

"Oh," Sasuke said in a small voice. In his eyes, Shisui was part of her generation, already a shinobi when he was born. They hadn't spent that much time together over the years, but Shisui had always been affectionate with him, in some ways treating him with more warmth than his own brother. "Did they...go tell Itachi?"

She nodded. "They will. Don't bother them. They need to ask him some questions about what he was doing last night."

His eyes went wide. "They don't think Itachi pushed—"

"No," she said quickly. "No, of course not, Shisui is his best—" she began, her tongue catching on the present tense. "Was his best friend." She pulled herself up, brushing her apron smooth. "Why don't you go finish your homework? I'll bring you some dinner when it's warmed up."

"No, that's okay. I'm not really that hungry," he said, sounding slightly dazed, and withdrew obediently upstairs.

Some moments later, Kon slid open one of the screens. "Would you tell Itachi-sama we need to speak with him now?"

"This way, please," she said, and led them up the stairs. Itachi was sitting up in bed, looking rumpled, as if he'd come awake to his father's voice below the window. Every nuance of his posture was deliberate; for once, he looked as young as he truly was, and, if not harmless, certainly not a murderer.

"I heard my father shouting," he said, hesitant, his voice rough with sleep. "Did something happen to Shisui?"

"We were assuming you could tell us," Inabi said, locking his arms over his chest. "Mikoto-sama, I'm going to have to ask you to wait downstairs."

She nodded, without speaking, and withdrew. Itachi was the best liar she had ever met. He knew how to worm his way through an interrogation, all the techniques to deflect even the judgement of a sharingan. He'd be all right. He _had_ to be all right.

She made her way back to the kitchen, and pulled some fish from the stewpot for the cat, to occupy her hands. It set to nibbling daintily on the small plate she set before it, unconcerned about the apprehension striking sparks against the rest of the family. After about ten minutes, the two detectives descended the stairs, and let themselves out. Mikoto rose, silent on her bare feet, to listen against the screen.

"Fugaku-sama…he was lying. He knows something," Inabi said. "The rest of the council is convinced we have a traitor in our—"

"And you think it's Itachi, of all people?" Kon interrupted. "There's no evidence! It was an accident. A terrible, terrible accident, but an accident nonetheless. There were no marks on the body, no signs of a struggle at the bridge, no _nothing_. Judging by the condition Yuji-san found him in, and the BAC we got out of Shisui's remains, he would barely have been lucid enough to put one foot in front of the other by the time they left the bar last night."

"Which makes it likely he had accomplices," Inabi added triumphantly.

Mikoto swallowed. A long time ago, when she had still been a little girl, Konoha had suffered a cold snap the likes of which the village had never seen. Under the supervision of the eldest children, the younger ones had thrown themselves into the marvelous whiteness with abandon. Covered with a layer of pristine snow, Mikoto hadn't been able to see the banks of the frozen pond that, in the summer, she knew well to avoid. She only realized her play had taken her over water, and not land, when the ice beneath her feet began to crack and groan.

Then, as now, she could feel everything supporting her buckling, a helpless panic burning up her legs, her belly, her chest. Someone had saved her then, but...

"He's my son!" Fugaku cried suddenly, livid. "My _son_!"

"Sir, I only meant that we should consider the possibility—" Inabi said, stumbling back into the formalities he'd so casually tossed aside before.

"Get out of my house," Fugaku said. "That is an order. Out."

Two sets of footsteps beat a hasty retreat out of the front gate. Mikoto slid down the support beam until he knees struck the floor, and stayed there, panting.

Then, as now, it had been Uchiha Fugaku that had saved her life.

-ooo-

It was nearing midnight. The door to his study was open a fraction. He had a single glass, and what had been a mostly full bottle of shōchū on his desk. She inserted her fingers into the gap, and pushed the sliding door open wide enough for her to slip inside.

The dull desolation in his expression sparked into annoyance. "What?"

"With Shisui gone...what are we going to do?" she asked.

"Do I look like I know?" he snapped. He drained what was left of the glass, and brought it down hard on the desktop. "What could he have been thinking?" he muttered under his breath. "Selfish, disobedient child..."

"He was grieving. Please don't hold it against him."

"I meant Itachi!" he barked. "This is his fault. Everything has been his fault. Shisui's dead. We have no one to place in the position of Godaime Hokage. The clan's fragmenting. The rest of the council think I'm a sentimental fool for defending him for so long and they're..." he trailed off into a low growl.

He knew. He knew exactly what Itachi had done, and had become, and yet, at least for now, the part of him that was a father held at bay the part that was an officer. The entire rebellion had been, at its heart, for Itachi's sake. He demanded nothing less than perfection of his children, but in return meant to give them the world.

"Maybe...this is a sign," she said quietly. "To call off the coup….Without a strong Uchiha Hokage we won't be able to hold against Iwagakure. Try resuming the talks with the village council. The Hokage may—"

Without warning, he slung the empty glass at her face. She withdrew behind the door with a gasp, and it shattered against the beam. "Don't you _dare_," he snarled. "We'll move ahead as planned if I have to take the Hokage's mantle myself. Get out."

Mikoto bowed her head, and slid the door shut, the glass grinding against the runners. It was nothing more and nothing less than what she had expected.

-ooo-

Shisui's funeral was held three days later. It was well attended, but the mourners seemed eager to pay their respects to his mother, and leave as quickly as possible—no one expected the most powerful of the Uchiha to die piss drunk at the bottom of the river. Itachi endured their stares and whispers in stiff silence. As Shisui's only student, he was given a place of honor before the altar, but declined to say a word beyond halfhearted murmurs of thanks in response to the condolences offered by the rest of the clan. His father, very conspicuously, gave his to Shisui's mother alone.

From that day forward, the tension in the house was so thick it was difficult to draw a breath when father and son were in the same room together. They didn't speak, except out of necessity. They barely even looked at each other. Itachi was no longer invited to council meetings. His place as leader of Assault Team 1 was quietly passed to his second. Itachi avoided the house as much as he possibly could. He no longer even ate his meals with his family. In short, Fugaku had disowned his elder son in every way, short of signing the legal documents that would remove him from the inheritance of his father's title.

All of the care and attention her husband had spent on Itachi he now gave, unreservedly, to Sasuke. He began asking for his class standing and his weapon throwing averages. In between meetings of the Jōnin Council, and the preparations for the action on the Niidaime's birthday, he carved out time to train Sasuke personally, in ever more advanced katon jutsu. The little boy blossomed under his attention. It inspired him to succeed in a way that Mikoto's own encouragement never quite reached. He cut short his play time with Naruto to spend yet more hours training at the edge of the pier, returning late at night with his lips scorched and his chakra so drained he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

To him, it seemed as though all his dreams for his father to finally recognize him had come true. Every time Mikoto had smiled and said '_yes, of course your father loves you'..._it was tangible now. Mikoto had never seen him so happy.

But every one of his smiles left a bitter taste on her lips, because soon, very soon, the man was probably going to die.


	15. Chapter 15

While Mikoto had been carving away support for the coup from the inside, the Hokage, and a few trusted advisors, been working feverishly on their plan to eliminate Madara. A few weeks after Uchiha Takuma's funeral, and the covert meeting that had taken place after, she donned the ANBU mask again and stole into the Hokage's tower under the starlight. She was intensely curious to meet this 'intellect' the Hokage had obliquely referred to the last time they'd spoken—the man who would have a chance at outmaneuvering Madara.

She landed gracefully on the staircase spiraling around the top floors, and rose from her crouch. Unlike the last time, Daishiro wasn't here to meet her. But someone was lounging against the balcony railing, his arms crossed indolently across his chest. He yawned loudly, and at length, then unfolded himself from the slouch. He nodded at her. He smelled faintly like a stable, and, if he hadn't been wearing a flak jacket under his ragged leather coat, she could have been forgiven for assuming he was a vagrant. "You're rather late, Mikoto-san_,_" he said, in a gravelly baritone. "Shall we, then?"

Her henge was flawless; he must have been expecting her, and been told how she'd be disguising herself. She took a few steps forward, and as she did so the cloud obscuring the full moon passed it by. "Shikaku-san?" she said, recognition arriving with the brighter moonlight. "You're attending the meeting with the Hokage?"

He shrugged. "I was roped into it somehow," he said, as he ducked into the doorway. Mikoto followed, and dropped the henge, once the door had shut behind them. "If I'd known being Jōnin Commander was going to involve this many late nights, I never would have signed on. I was hoping for a nice, relaxing desk job in my old age."

Mikoto stopped in her tracks. "You're the new Jōnin Commander?" she asked, incredulous. The Senju kunoichi who had previously held the post had just announced her retirement due to poor health. Nara Shikaku hadn't been on the short list of candidates to replace her. She didn't think he'd been on _any_ list. He had no special qualities that would have recommended him for a position of such authority; as a shinobi he was stunningly average, except for how thoroughly his wife Yoshino had him wrapped around her finger. And she was only mostly sure he was joking about the overtime.

"Officially, I am as of next week," he explained. "In light of the current situation, the Hokage had me starting a little early." He led her to a small conference room in the top level, and turned the handle. "Ladies first."

There were eight men seated at the low table, already deep in discussion. The Hokage was at its head, Jiraiya on his right and Itachi at his left. Mikoto and Shikaku settled themselves into the empty places next to Daishiro.

One of the ANBU captains, a hulking man whose mask was adorned with a pair of bull's horns, turned to her. "Begging your pardon, Uchiha-sama," he said, obviously continuing a point their entrance had interrupted, "but I do not understand why we must put the whole village at risk, if sacrificing a small part of it could ensure the safety of the whole."

"Because there is no safety as long as Madara lives," the Hokage said, with total certainty. "His goal is not to assist his clansmen in achieving their revolution. It is to destroy Konoha entirely. The Uchiha are depending on their alliance with Kiri to protect them from the worst of Kumo's aggression. If their assassination attempt were to succeed, it is my belief that Madara will have the Mizukage pull out of that alliance at the most catastrophic time. Konoha would be overrun. If it did _not_ succeed, he would spring another trap around us. Not now, perhaps, but soon enough."

"We _know_ he concocts plans, within plans, within plans in his quest for vengeance. He tried seven years ago, and more Uchiha died defending the village from the Kyūbi than shinobi from any other clan. Although Minato foiled that attempt, Madara ensured they would be weakened as a clan, _and_ that the seeds of dissent would be planted when he tried again. Sacrificing the Uchiha may buy Konoha a little time, but it won't prevent the inevitable. And I also am deeply concerned with this Akatsuki organization he is assembling—especially its interest in Uzumaki Naruto."

"The next time he tries, I doubt we will have the benefit of a warning, and it is also likely he will have assembled a roster of very powerful allies," the Hokage finished.

"Which is why we must strike now," Itachi put in. "We tear out Madara's influence by the roots, and then we kill him. The Uchiha beyond his reach have as much invested in keeping Konoha whole as any of you. _Their _ancestors accepted the Senju alliance, and _they_ chose to have him exiled. Without their assistance there would be no Konoha."

The dissenting ANBU captain did not seem pleased to be brought to task by a thirteen-year-old, but his arguments subsided.

"Shikaku-san_," _the Hokage said. "Now that Mikoto-san has joined us...I am interested to learn what you plan to do with these." He placed the metallic sphere he had been toying with carefully at the center of the table.

Mikoto looked at it dubiously. They looked superficially like the smoke bombs many shinobi carried to cover a retreat, although larger. "They might bring down visibility a little, but not enough to make much difference. It's too easy to dispel the smoke," she said.

"They're not your standard ninja tools," Shikaku corrected. "The daimyo's police forces use them for riot control in Earth Country. Each canister is filled with a chemical that's aerosolized upon detonation. The gas causes severe eye irritation and temporary blindness. Hurts like hell, or so I've been told, but it's not lethal. We can modify ANBU masks to seal against the face, and attach the air filters they use in Ame."

"That would be adequate to disable the rebels' sharingan?" the Hokage asked Mikoto.

"Yes," she answered, surprised. "Unlike the Hyūga, we can't see through our own eyelids. It should work." Mikoto thought it was a stroke of genius, and her respect for the man jumped up a notch. When fighting an Uchiha, you had two real options (three if you considered 'beg for mercy' a strategy): bring the area visibility down to zero, or blind them. For obvious reasons, the first option was almost as much of a handicap to the other shinobi as it was to their Uchiha opponent. But the second could work. Years ago, she herself had almost been killed by a mere chūnin armed with nothing more than a handful of hot ashes and a single kunai.

"Once the rebels are incapacitated, the ANBU teams, and their Uchiha escorts, will move in to make the arrests. Your brother provided us a detailed map of the loyalists' residences," Shikaku said, gesturing in Mikoto's direction with his chin, "and also suggested we make use of 'safe houses' where the very old, the very young, and the ill will be taking shelter. A healthy adult recovers fairly quickly from the corrosive effects of the gas, but I don't want to push our luck with it—a dead kid is the absolute last thing I want out of this. After we've rounded up the suspects, we'll run them by the Yamanaka for deep mind probes. Anyone that fails, or refuses to submit, will be executed as traitors."

"Objections?" the Hokage asked. No one gave them. "Good. Now...this will do us no good if Madara still lives. Wolf, if you would?"

Itachi sat up a little straighter, keenly conscious of his youth compared to everyone else in the room. "Madara possesses the Eternal Mangekyō sharingan," he said. "He has mastered all of the katon techniques favored by the Uchiha, as well as jikūkan ninjutsu. His prowess exceeds that of the Yondaime by an enormous margin—he doesn't require even a single handseal to activate any of them. The jutsu is capable of teleporting him to any familiar location, or rendering his body intangible and impervious to damage. His genjutsu is enormously powerful, enough to hold a lesser bijū under his thrall for an extended period of time. His chakra reserves may rival that of a jinchuriki. Additionally, he seems to be in possession of an immortality jutsu which—"

"You can't be serious," interrupted a man in a boar mask. "No one is that strong. He must be bluffing."

"No," Itachi said coldly. "He is not."

"But even so, he is _not_ invulnerable," Shikaku put in. "I have been briefed on all available intelligence concerning Madara, both from Itachi-san's interaction with him, and historical records from the time predating the village's founding. With this information, I have formulated a strategy to defeat him."

Mikoto caught herself holding her breath, waiting for him to continue.

"He has two major goals, one of which he has stated plainly, and another which can be extrapolated from his actions thus far. The first, as you already know, is to wipe Konoha from the map. I believe the second is to collect several, or possibly all nine, jinchūriki. He is in possession of two so far, the puppet Mizukage, vessel of the Sanbi, and presumably the Kirigakure genin Utakata, vessel of the Rokubi. According to Itachi-san_, _the surrender of the Kyūbi was a critical piece of the negotiations the Uchiha conducted in secret with Kirij."

"In order to accomplish his first goal, he will first have to bring Naruto-kun to safety, or he risks killing its vessel in the chaos. Even he can't control a freed Kyūbi for long. That he has not done so already indicates he either cannot locate Naruto-kun easily, or cannot transport him out of the village. Itachi-san has again corroborated this theory," Shikaku said, with dip of his head towards him.

"When I requested his assist for the supposed massacre of the Uchiha, he asked me specifically whether or not the Naka Shrine was the same as it had been in his time. He was adamant that I meet him there," Itachi said. "It seems he cannot enter Konoha through any other route. Nor can he teleport in safely; the Konoha he knew was barely more than a glorified military encampment. So much has changed he risks rematerializing halfway through a wall. The shrine is one of the oldest buildings in Konoha, and the only one he remembers clearly enough to use as an anchor."

"In the course of my research I uncovered a very old seal inscription integrated into the base of the detection barrier around Konoha," Shikaku continued. "The current barrier team knew only that it was placed by Uzumaki Mito-sama_,_ and were unaware of its true purpose, but have faithfully maintained it regardless. As it happens, they have probably saved all of our lives—it is an instant-kill seal keyed to Madara's chakra. The Shodai knew he'd return to wreck havoc after being banished. If he attempted to set foot through the gates, he'd be vaporized. With this in mind, I propose we remove Naruto-kun to a remote, secure location, and keep him there until the conclusion of this operation." He looked to Jiraiya. "With the permission of the Toad clan, Mount Myoboku would be ideal."

"Consider it given," Jiraiya said immediately. "The boss liked Minato even more than he likes me. If he knew Madara was messing with his kid, he'd try to flatten the bastard himself. Don't think he'd mind if Naruto brought a friend, either," he said, pointedly, to Mikoto.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Mikoto said, with relief. "Once he realizes Itachi has betrayed him, I was afraid he might go after Sasuke to cut his losses."

Shikaku nodded with satisfaction. "With Naruto-kun safely hidden, knowledge of his whereabouts will be our bait to draw Madara into the trap."

"And once that's occurred?" Boar asked. "How the hell are we supposed to kill someone we can't even touch?"

Shikaku gave him a lopsided smile. "I keep a step or five ahead of everyone. Madara is no exception. His entire existence centers on one thing—vengeance. In any given situation, he may be relied upon to take the option that offers the least risk to himself, while simultaneously causing the most physical or emotional pain to an individual he believes has wronged him. If he were to come across someone who has knowledge of where Naruto is being held, I'm certain he would attempt to torture it out of them. His Tsukuyomi, a genjutsu that implants memories of days of torture in the span of seconds, is the ideal means to this end. The only requirement, besides the Mangekyō sharingan_,_ is eye contact. This genjutsu is for all practical purposes unbreakable, and, when released, leaves the victim mentally incapacitated. Permanently."

"However...it does have one weakness. Because of the intensity of the technique, _he_ enters the illusion along with his victim, and his entire awareness is focused inward to create and implant the memories. For the few seconds the genjutsu takes to perform, he cannot maintain any kage bunshin, he is blind and deaf to the world, and his _body is tangible_. If a killing blow were to be delivered in this window, Madara could be defeated. This strategy requires a solitary operative, and a platoon of six: one of the platoon to act as bait, a solitary operative to perform the assassination, and the rest to protect the one baiting Madara until he engages the target."

"With Jiraiya-sama's assistance, we can rig a summoning seal keyed to the assassin to activate the moment Madara's target is put under the genjutsu. They will have at most three seconds to destroy his body."

The Hokage chewed on his pipe, and then removed it to exhale a cloud of smoke. "Hound. You will perform the assassination. Choose your second, and your four best men to fill out the team." He closed his eyes briefly. "I open the floor to volunteers for the final position."

Itachi rose immediately. A man in a dolphin mask was about to follow him, but Mikoto shot to her feet before he was out of a crouch. Every mask in the room turned to stare at her.

"Itachi," she said. "Sit down."

"I outrank you, and I refuse," he said evenly.

Mikoto ground her teeth, and addressed the Hokage. "I apologize, sir, but may we be excused to discuss this matter in private?"

The Hokage nodded, and indicated a side door half-concealed by a hanging tapestry. Mikoto walked past the kneeling ANBU members. Itachi sighed and followed her. It opened into a narrow, windowless corridor with weak electric lights lining the ceiling. When the heavy door swung closed, Mikoto pushed her mask up to her forehead, and Itachi did the same. "I won't let you," she said fiercely. "I won't let you face him alone."

"That is my choice to make. I am ANBU. Despite your participation in this mission, you are not."

"Why would that matter?" she said. "We took the same oath. I'm as capable of performing this duty as you are."

"I'm _not_ questioning your ability," he said. "You are a more skilled shinobi than I ever would have thought. But this is a suicide mission. Or something even worse, if that is possible." His voice dropped even lower. "I've seen his victims, Mother. A senior Kiri jōnin, Momochi Karebana, was implicated in a plot to provoke a rebellion against the Yondaime Mizukage. Whether she was truly guilty I do not know, but she is kept chained to the wall of the Mizukage's audience chamber, nearly catatonic and covered in filth. The key to her manacles is hanging around her neck. Until she retired, she was a member of the Seven Swordsmen, and even she hadn't enough of a mind left after the Tsukuyomi to free herself. I will not allow anyone to sacrifice themselves this way for my sake...especially you."

Mikoto brought her gloved hands up to cradle his face, turning it back to her when he drew away. "Itachi...I've failed to protect you so many times," she whispered. "Give me this. Please. You have your whole life spreading out in front of you, and I don't think I could live with myself if I failed you this final time."

Itachi bowed his head, shut his eyes. "No," he whispered.

"The Uchiha will need you. The village will need you. How can you serve them if you've already thrown your life away?"

"Sasuke needs his mother," he said stubbornly.

"Sasuke has you_. _When you were little, you used to tell me that you would always be there protect him, no matter what happened. And you did. You were the one who carried him safely to the shelters, when the Kyūbi attacked. You watched over him when he started weapons practice, and then his first ninjutsu. You forced a promise from the entire Konoha Council to spare his life, no matter what happens to the rest of us. And more than that...he _loves_ you."

After long moments, he nodded his consent. "All right," he said, nearly inaudible, turning his face away, and pulling down the mask to conceal his features. "The task is yours."

He pulled open the door, to rejoin the conference, as Mikoto resettled her own mask. She knelt at her place, every man waiting patiently. "Hokage-sama_..._with your permission, I will take the final position," Mikoto said, her voice hard. "Madara will likely know that I've been looking after Naruto. This plan has the greatest chance of success if one of the Clan Head's family is the one to confront him."

"That is your final decision?" the Hokage asked.

"It is, sir."

"And, if you believe I am capable of this duty," Itachi added, "I request that you allow me to serve as the mission leader, and perform the assassination."

"There has never been an ANBU captain as young as you are in the history of Konoha," the Hokage pointed out.

"That is true," Kakashi said, speaking up for the first time. "But the ANBU code itself states that neither age nor rank should have any bearing on the decision to promote a member, only their mission record and the recommendation of their team captain. He may not have much of a record yet, but he was my subordinate, and I officially recommend you promote him."

The Hokage's eyebrows arched, but he nodded. "Then I trust your judgement. Wolf…as of now, you have the rank of ANBU squad captain. Choose your team in consultation with Hound, and submit your selections as soon as possible. Unless there are any additional questions, you are dismissed." He rose carefully, and pinned Mikoto with a meaningful glance. "Please meet me in my office. I have something to discuss with you in private."

The one in the badger mask stopped her with a hand on her shoulder while the others filed out behind the Hokage. "Daishiro," she said, refusing to flinch from the touch.

"You don't have to do this...it's insane," he said, the concern in his voice unmuffled by the mask. "Let one of us confront Madara. You haven't seen combat since the Kyūbi attacked—if there was a rank above S this mission would be it."

"That's not possible, and you know it," she snapped, unjustly angry at him for prodding her already trembling resolve. "Aside from Itachi, I have the strongest natural talent for genjutsu in the village. I have the best chance out of all of you of withstanding his Tsukuyomi."

"You're an Uchiha!" he exclaimed. "You know full well there's no 'withstanding' that genjutsu. He'll shatter your mind, and I can't—"

"You will," she said, cutting him off. "You're a shinobi. You will."

He let his hand slide from her shoulder, much too slowly, in a way that made her feel like she was fifteen again. Daishiro was the first boy she'd ever kissed, when they were young, and stupid, and thought that love was something that could carry them through anything. She thought he'd given up that puppy crush the day of her wedding. Mikoto swallowed hard. For that matter, she thought _she_ had.

"You should have applied for ANBU thirteen years ago," he said. "Spending all that time scrubbing floors for Fugaku was nothing short of a criminal waste."

-ooo-

After he left, Mikoto stood silent in the empty room, just to breathe. She had a good idea of what the Hokage wished to discuss, and the thought of it constricted around her heart like the coils of a snake. She restored the henge of the green-haired ANBU operative, in case there were any aides scurrying about at this late hour, and strode the short distance to the Hokage's office. The door was open a crack, and there was no one else about, not even his bodyguards. She let herself in and locked the door behind her.

The Hokage had his back to her, and was staring out over the darkened village. "Your resolve continues to surprise me, Mikoto-san," he said. "But perhaps it shouldn't. What a mother is willing to sacrifice for her children."

She had no answer for him; she was still wrestling with the decision herself.

"There is, however, one more thing that must be addressed before we proceed with the operation," he said. "Relations with the lower-ranking Uchiha may be repaired, if it comes to light they were manipulated. However, those directly responsible have committed treason, and must receive the corresponding punishment. The integrity of the village demands it. I cannot be perceived as forgiving of traitors; my mercy has already done Konoha enough harm."

Mikoto swallowed around the tightness in her throat. That crime had only one sentence. Death. She probably wouldn't be able to change the Hokage's mind, even though the mistreatment of the Uchiha, and her husband's rebellion against it, had been based on a carefully orchestrated lie.

After Orochimaru's secret laboratory had been discovered, and his hideous crimes had been laid bare, the Hokage couldn't bring himself to kill his wayward student. In the tunnels, ANBU had found his notes on experiments with the Shodai's pilfered remains, and the fifty-nine little sapling trees that had taken root in fifty-nine little bloodstained beds. Even after seeing the evidence with his own eyes, still the Hokage hadn't been able to carry out the sentence. He allowed Orochimaru to flee into exile. Spurred by his superior's failure to act, Shimura Danzō had taken it upon himself, initially creating Root for the express purpose of hunting down and killing Orochimaru. That he later split the loyalty of ANBU, and destabilized the village in the process, was a direct result of that act of mercy.

The Hokage turned his chair to face her. "Someone close to the Clan Head would be the obvious choice. Fugaku knows I will be out for his blood, and protects himself accordingly; currently only one of my agents would be able to get near him."

"No son should be forced to execute his own father, no matter how heinous his crimes," she said, her voice low. "I know that personal feelings can't come before mission objectives for ANBU agents, but...he's already been forced to murder his best friend. Please don't ask this of him too. He's so strong, stronger than both of us, but you _know_ that would break him."

"What would you have me do?" the Hokage asked, sadly. "ANBU will be able to take the other council members, who are old and weak, but Fugaku is young enough to be in excellent fighting form, and experienced enough not to give an assassin an opening. Yet he must be taken down, and soon. Every day that goes by makes it more likely he will discover you intend to betray him. The Uchiha rebels are that aware one of their own is working against them. You don't have much time."

Behind the porcelain mask, Mikoto bit down on her lip so hard it almost drew blood. "Is there anything I can say that would convince you to spare his life? He served the village faithfully for almost twenty years."

"Do you think I'm unaware of what the Uchiha have done for Konoha? If there was any way to resolve this situation without executing your husband, I would have done so. If I show mercy to a traitor again, I have no doubt Danzō will attempt to push a vote of 'no-confidence' through the Jōnin Council with whatever means he deems necessary. Far too many of the clan heads already believe I've gone soft in my old age. And after he's forced my resignation, and slipped something lethal and untraceable into my tea, you will then have to deal with a Hokage who truly _does_ wish to grind the Uchiha into dust beneath his heel."

She ground her teeth. The Hokage was right, damn him. And even if he did show her husband mercy, the man was so proud she was afraid he wouldn't take it. Danzō was too astute to let an opportunity like that pass by. There were two results from that course of action. A coup, or a massacre. Either way, Konoha would be devastated.

"Then I'll do it myself, if it must be done," she choked out. "Infiltration and assassination was my area of expertise. Fugaku won't be able to bring himself to kill me, no matter what I've done. I'll be safe until I engage Madara."

"Your emotional investment is too great. I will not assign you this mission."

"And I won't let you force Itachi to murder his own father! Why should they have to pay the price for your mistake?"

The Hokage sighed deeply. "If those words had come from anyone else's lips, they would find themselves charged with insubordination." He sat back in his chair, his gnarled hands clenched on the arm rests. "They shouldn't have to," he said softly, regret permeating his age-roughened voice. "If I could take the burden entirely on myself, I would. Perhaps some day I will...but that day is not today, for the sake of the village and for your clan."

Mikoto ignored the warning, and the apology. "I swear to you the mission objectives will be carried out."

"But not that you won't interfere with an official ANBU operation?"

She kept silent.

"Very well," he said. "Since there is nothing I could do short of imprisoning you to force your cooperation, go. Report here again the morning of the festival for Jiraiya to inscribe the seal."

* * *

**Dear Everybody**: if you can think of any holes in my 'Let's Waste Madara and Stop the Uchiha Rebels' plan, as detailed above, let me know. The antagonists end up poking some big holes in it, but, um…SPOILER, not saying any more about that presently. Perhaps I will dispense a gift to anyone who guesses how they counter it.

Although nobody in-story is aware of Madara's ability to use Izanagi to weasel his way out of things, circumstances conspire in such a way as to leave him too low on chakra to fire it. It's _so_ cheating anyway. Hmph.


	16. Chapter 16

The Nidaime's birthday dawned on a beautiful spring day, the sky a clear azure and the air scented with sakura blossoms. The village was bubbling with anticipation for the festival. By just after sunrise, the streets were already crowded with enterprising shop owners and gawking visitors from the country towns. Mikoto had seen the dawn creep over the mountain peaks curled up in the bench by her bedroom window. She hadn't slept. Her husband was going over last-minute preparations with the assault teams, and Itachi had disappeared to find his own peace.

She'd let Sasuke stay up far past his usual bedtime; the school was closed for the holiday, and she needed him to sleep for a while longer. She stopped at his room before she left, pulled the door open a fraction. He was sleeping in a tangle of blankets, his arm throw over his chest. She didn't wake him. It wasn't the time to say goodbye yet.

She left the house with her shopping basket slung over her arm, in some horrible parody of her usual morning errands. Once she passed the borders of the Uchiha district, she wrapped herself in the henge of a sour-looking merchant's widow, and strode to the center of town. On her face she fixed an expression of distaste to scare away friendly conversation. There was a small army of rookie genin erecting food stalls and game stands. Customers were spilling out of the tiny open-air restaurants with handfuls of breakfast wrapped in yesterday's newspaper. Even her glare wasn't enough to discourage the bravest of the hawkers, and finally she had to resort to taking the narrow alleys to the Hokage's tower instead. At the door, she let her sharingan seep through the unremarkable brown eyes of the woman whose face she'd borrowed. The chūnin guarding the door ushered her inside.

Festival days were a prime opportunity for a spy to slip unnoticed past the great gates. A large portion of Konoha's ANBU had been recalled to manage security for the event, and at this time of the morning the tower was thick with them, as they were distributed their assignments. One of the anonymous black cloaks peeled off from the rest, inclining her head slightly. She wore a freshly polished cat mask that looked too unblemished to have seen much action. "If you'll come with me, ma'am," she said, in a voice Mikoto knew very well.

Mikoto fell into step behind the taller woman, still playing the part of the merchant's widow. Yūgao led them to the lower levels of the structure, and then to a door with three seal tags pasted over the door and frame. A large orange 'RESTRICTED' sign was riveted to the metal. She pressed her forefinger against each of the three seals in succession, and the paper glowed briefly and peeled back of its own accord. A utilitarian stairwell descended far down into the lower levels, probably deep into the bedrock.

"You can drop the henge, we're in a secure area," Yūgao said, once the heavy metal door had shut behind them. "Jiraiya-sama is waiting for you, I'll take you to him."

That was considerate. She now had a chaperone. She managed half a smile for Yūgao, whose response was concealed by her mask. They walked in silence through the chilly corridors. Yūgao stopped at an unmarked door, slightly ajar. Warm candlelight was seeping out around the jamb. She pushed it open, and indicated Mikoto enter.

The room was a mess of notebooks, scrolls, and sake bottles. Jiraiya was sitting in the middle of it, next to the room's only piece of furniture, a low table, and sipping a cup of tea. Despite the evidence of a marathon of drinking that had taken place within the last few days, he looked perfectly alert. A brush, a well of slightly brownish ink, and a scrap with a rough sketch of a human form and a meticulously rendered seal inscription topped the piles of paper.

"I can find you anything you require from the ANBU quartermaster, Jiraiya-sama," Yūgao said.

He drained the cup and set it on the table, rising with a grunt. "I have everything I need," he answered. Yūgao nodded and knelt behind the door, unobtrusively ready to render any assistance required.

"Please...take off your shirt and lie down," he said. "Don't mind me."

"Would it kill you to take this a little more seriously?" she snapped.

"If I took every serious situation seriously I'd be as crazy as Orochimaru by now," he replied.

Mikoto crossed her arms over her chest. "You're sure there's no one else who could do this?"

"Well...let me think," he said, tapping the brush against his chin. "You need a fusion of two extremely complex, chakra-intensive seals, and screwing up the job could mean the end of Konoha as we know it. Nobody's coming to mind."

"Fine. Point made," Mikoto said crossly, and started untying the sash holding her long vest closed. "But this had better not make it into one of those idiotic books of yours. Or I'll scramble your head so badly every pretty girl you try to peep on will turn into a sagging granny."

"On my honor," he said, mockingly solemn...then a little worried. "Could you really do that?"

"Do you really want to find out?"

"Just tell me when you're all settled," he said meekly, and turned to face the wall. He cleared his throat. "Please."

Unexpectedly, that won a tiny smile out of her. For all of his carefully cultivated reputation as an incorrigible pervert, he was...oddly respectful of women, and kunoichi in particular. With Tsunade as a teammate it was probably an ingrained survival tactic. He might take every opportunity to peer down a woman's cleavage, but hell...at least he appreciated their assets above eye level, too, which was more than could be said for a lot of men. And no woman had accused him of forcing himself on her against her will in the entirety of his long career. Since he'd served through two wars, this was really something. Konoha shinobi tended to be more respectful of civilians than average, but weren't wholly above theft and rape if they thought they could get away with it.

Mikoto pulled off the vest and undershirt and unhooked her bra. She folded the clothes up in a neat pile and lay down on the floor, cushioning her head in her hands. The threat was an empty one, but he wasn't taking any chances, and he didn't even try to sneak a peek. "Ready," she said.

He picked up his inkwell, without any more jokes. He began at the base of her neck, with a single dab of his brush the slight protrusion of her vertebra. The liquid was warm, and smelled faintly of blood. Although she couldn't see what he was doing, she could feel it. The brush tickling her skin sketched out the skeleton of the design in elegant dashes of ink, radiating outward from her spine, always laying down his strokes in the direction of her chakra flow. The seal grew organically, whorl by whorl, and her appreciation for his skill rose tenfold. The synthesis of an advanced seal inscription was a painstaking exercise in draftsmanship rather than art, carefully measured and plotted with rulers and compasses. For the longest time, Kushina was the only person she knew that could wing it, and later, after a great deal of study, Minato was added to that very short list. Maybe his sensei had been listening in on the lessons.

She'd barely slept the night before, and her eyelids were heavy by the time he finished the preparations, stood, and stretched out his back. "Summoning seals are usually attached to paper, not people," he said. "The infusion is going to hurt. A lot. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

He placed the fingertips of his right hand over her spine, directly over her heart, and _pushed_. Creating seals of this kind required massive chakra stores, to bend the very fabric of space to the seal master's will. The room was illuminated with dancing blue light, and every track of his brush over her skin was lit on fire. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming, but it forced itself out anyway.

After a second the glow faded, and the room was lit by the warm flame of the wall sconces once more. She barely dared to breath; every movement stoked the fire on her back anew.

"Shit. Don't move. We'll find you the medic."

"Did it work?" she choked out.

"Yeah. It worked," he said. "A little to well."

Yūgao was already on her feet, and Mikoto heard the door open and close as she hurried down the hall to find someone to deal with her burns. Two sets of footsteps returned in short order. "What the hell did you do to her?" asked the medic, as she knelt promptly beside Mikoto.

"Look, I'm sorry," Jiraiya said. "I had to work fast. We didn't have time for a gradual infusion."

"Can I give her a nerve block without disrupting the seal?" the woman asked. She sounded older, and had a throaty smoker's voice.

"Mmm," he replied.

The ANBU medic placed one finger at the base of her skull, and the pain iced over into a tingling numbness. She got to work, the infusion of her chakra into Mikoto's back as gentle as Jiraiya's had been overpowering. "I can heal you well enough to fight later, but you're going to have these scars for the rest of your life."

Mikoto felt something catch in her throat. The woman was being awfully optimistic if she thought Mikoto was going to be in a position to care. "I don't care how it looks. Get me as close to healed as you can, as fast as you can." The woman grunted her approval, and continued her work in silence.

When she finished, the medic helped her rise slowly into a sitting position. The woman wore no cloak and a doe mask topped with close-cropped black hair; Mikoto didn't know her. Jiraiya had conscientiously turned to study a sketch pinned to the wall with great fascination. Satisfied with her work, the medic helped her dress with professional detachment. Nerve blocks as tight as hers took some time to wear off, and Mikoto's fingers were too numb and clumsy for fine manipulations. The skin of her back felt tight and itchy, but it wouldn't impede her fighting ability. "We're done," Mikoto said. "You can turn around."

Jiraiya looked around his shoulder hesitantly, and then turned to face them. The medic got to her feet, inclined her head slightly in Mikoto's direction, and went back to her post.

"The seal has two charges," Jiraiya explained once she'd gone. "One to test the summoning once she's under a genjutsu, and one for the real deal. Where's Itachi-san?"

"With the Hokage," Yūgao answered.

"Would you do the honors, ANBU-san?" Jiraiya asked. "I'm not a genjutsu type. Anything would do."

Mikoto stood, shaking out her skirts. Yūgao nodded and performed a few handseals. Mikoto felt the room spin slightly, and in place of the dark figure kneeling by the door was a girl of about ten or eleven, with solemn brown eyes and a bob of violet hair. On her right was a slightly chubby boy a few years older, with pouches of medical tools slung over each hip. He grinned at her. On her left was a girl with a katana strapped to her back, chewing a piece of gum and wearing her boyish mien with languid defiance. The younger Yūgao smiled faintly at Mikoto, although a few tears had begun to slip down her cheeks. "Thank you for everything, sensei," she murmured.

As she spoke there was a rush of air and a curl of smoke. Itachi appeared in the midst of it, his back against hers. He stumbled a little as if dizzy, then righted himself. "Your seal appears to be successful," he said, addressing Jiraiya in a detached voice. "I have never been the subject of a kuchiyose no jutsu before. It was disorienting. I will adjust for it during the actual operation."

"The second time isn't as bad," he said. "Believe me, the toads have put me through the wringer with those." The reassurance fell flat, and Itachi ignored his attempt at humor. "I'll just be going, then," he said, with uncomfortable chuckle. Yūgao inclined her head faintly, and followed him out.

Itachi turned on his heels to look at Mikoto. "You should be heading back home," he said. "Father may return."

She nodded her understanding, but didn't move to leave, not yet. This would be that last time they had alone until...

Itachi realized it only a little after she did. He tensed, but nevertheless reached gently for her shoulder, toeing forbidden ground. He hadn't crossed that self-imposed borderline since his first kill five years ago. The day he had decided his mother had failed him.

She kept still, and didn't rush him. His embrace was tentative and awkward, as if he expected his body to fit in different places, his arms around her waist and his head pillowed on her chest. She returned it with force, in equal parts joy and grief. "Quit ANBU as soon as your contract is over," she said quietly. "It's not for you. Life as an assassin will drive you mad." She exhaled slowly against the collar of his jōnin vest. "You'd be a good teacher. Apply for a genin team when you're a little older. Konoha has enough cold-hearted assassins. Show them it's possible to live as a shinobi without giving up the people you love."

"I will," he replied.

She backed away, her head down. "If I...if I survive, please don't let Sasuke see it. I want him to remember me as I am now."

"He'll want to be at your side. I can't promise that."

"Itachi, please..."

"He'll have to come to understand the sacrifices a shinobi must make, and, judging by how quickly he's advancing, it will be sooner rather than later. I would rather he do it surrounded by family and friends, than in some battlefield," he said, and added softly. "We won't be able to protect him forever."

-ooo-

Sasuke resettled the straps of his pack on his shoulders. "Why are we going to visit Neko-baasan again so soon?" he whined, as he trotted along after her on the wide road out of Konoha. "Couldn't we leave tomorrow? The festival is going to be over by the time we get back." He made a face, and wiped a drip from his eyes that had snuck under the brim of his rain cloak. "And why'd we have to go _towards_ the thunderclouds?"

"Honestly, ma'am, I was wondering that too," Iriko added from her other side. "We're packed awfully light for such a long trip. The Old City is at least two days' journey, and the roads through the valley are going to be pure mud."

"I am sorry, you two, but these supplies are important," she said tightly.

Sasuke made an unhappy sputtering noise and dropped it, but she didn't need to be a chakra sensor to feel how resentful he was of the unexpected field trip. When his mother failed to give him a satisfactory answer, he stopped trying to keep up with her longer legs and fell back in a pout.

Her maid lengthened her stride to keep up with Mikoto. "If I was the suspicious type, which I'd like you to know I'm definitely not, I would wonder why it was so important a little boy and an asthmatic civilian were chosen to fetch these 'supplies'."

"It is important," Mikoto said under her breath. "At the moment, that's all you need to know."

The younger woman frowned at the sharpness of her tone and hefted her pack, hoarding her breath for the uphill climb. Mikoto turned her eyes back to the road up ahead. It was an unpleasant time of year to travel in the higher altitudes. The spring that had visited the settlements in the valley hadn't yet floated up to the mountains. The luscious blossoms promised by the peach orchards lining the mountain road were still hard, green buds. Her field of vision was dominated by an unappetizing palette of drab gray and brown, and all she could smell was trampled grass and manure.

Thankfully, it hadn't taken much to persuade her husband it would be safer to have Sasuke out of the way during the operation, and to take Iriko along to keep an eye on him. She'd lied and said they were going to their vacation home in the mountains, and planned to double back once her charges were safely away to their real destinations. If something went wrong, Danzō's men would check there first, hopefully giving her maid enough time to get away and start a new life in some sleepy southern town. She'd never activated her sharingan, and her combat abilities were limited to simple self-defense. Mikoto could only hope the mousy, but commendably loyal, young woman wasn't interesting enough for the Uchiha's enemies to expend many resources to trap her.

They continued their journey in soggy silence as six chakra signatures steadily gained ground behind them. The poor condition of the roads had kept them from going too far from the gates, but their followers wouldn't be hindered by such mundane annoyances. Despite his foul mood, Sasuke kept pausing to look behind him, as if he could feel the eyes on his back. Good boy. He was growing sharper by the day. Her throat prickled with the pain of knowing she'd never see him realize his potential.

When they passed the cultivated land, and entered a small patch of forest, the ANBU team dropped from the thick branches. Kakashi and Daishiro she already knew. There was a man wearing an insectoid mask and multiple holsters of senbon that was probably Shiranui Genma and an angular blond man in a bear mask whose name she didn't know. Jiraiya followed a second after. He had an unconscious Naruto slung over his shoulder.

Iriko shrieked, and stumbled sideways into Mikoto. Sasuke, to his credit, did not. His face had gone very white, but readied his hands to begin performing the gōkakyū nonetheless. "What did you do to Naruto?" he growled at Jiraiya, with a viciousness poorly suited to his high child's voice. The intensity of it was chilling. "If you hurt him I'll—"

"It's all right, you two. They're allies. And he's fine, Sasuke, just asleep," she said hastily, before Sasuke did something as foolhardy as launch a katon at Jiraiya. How quickly his mind snapped to thoughts of vengeance reminded her uncomfortably of herself. She put a calming hand on Iriko's back, who'd begun to wheeze in panic.

Kakashi peeled the unconscious boy off of Jiraiya's shoulder, and placed him gently on the ground. Mikoto felt a small mental pop, like the bursting of a soap bubble, as he broke the genjutsu keeping him quiet.

Naruto grumbled sleepily, scrubbed the fuzziness from his eyes, and looked up at Kakashi. "I know you," he said, his round face lighting up in recognition, as Kakashi helped him to his feet. "You helped me move my stuff into my new apartment. And I see you on the roof outside my balcony sometimes. Where are we? Did I fall asleep in the training ground again?"

"Not this time," Kakashi answered. "You're going on that little field trip Mikoto-sama told you about."

Sasuke grabbed the woozy Naruto by the wrist, and pulled him over to the comparative safety of his mother's reach, still glaring at Jiraiya.

"Sasuke, it's all right, really. Hound, Hornet, and Sun Bear are the rest of your brother's ANBU team. Badger is an old friend of mine, and also of Naruto's mother. They're here to help us."

"Help us _what_?" Iriko said shrilly, as she began to fold her mind around the situation. "Mikoto-sama...you don't mean to say you've...the plan is..."

"There will be no coup, if I've done my job, and that will have certain repercussions. The details are classified, but Naruto and Sasuke are both in terrible danger, and to a lesser degree, so are you." She slid her pack off her shoulder and dropped it at her maid's feet. "I want you to go on to the abandoned city, and wait for further instructions. Sun Bear will escort you. If you don't receive a message from Itachi within two days, run. The boys are going somewhere else...Someplace safe."

A look of horror was dawning across Sasuke's face. "I don't _want_ to go someplace safe," he said forcefully. "I want to stay with you. I'm the best in my class, I can use the gōkakyū, I don't need—"

"No arguments," Mikoto said. "If you're a shinobi already, then you'll have to follow orders. Naruto, that goes for you too. No whining and no backtalk. Both of you are very special boys, not just to me, but to Konoha." She looked up at Jiraiya. "There are people out there who might try to hurt you, and if you disobey a _single order_ your captain gives you, they might succeed."

"We have to go with him?" Sasuke said, aghast.

Naruto looked up at Jiraiya, craning his neck to do so. "Who the heck are you?"

"Jiraiya. One of the legendary Sannin, boy."

Naruto snorted and then doubled over laughing. "Legendary what? You totally made that up. You're not a legendary _anything_. I saw you getting chased down the street by a bunch of girls in bathrobes, and one of them threw her wash bucket at your butt and you fell in the canal."

"You're thinking of someone else."

Mikoto pursed her brows but didn't correct him.

"So where're we going?" Naruto asked. "Mikoto-obachan said it was someplace cool."

"It's full of giant talking toads," Jiraiya replied.

"Oh...kay," Sasuke said, not looking very enthusiastic.

"And everything is made of candy," Jiraiya added.

Sasuke looked at him blankly. "We're kids, not total idiots. And stop that," he added, punching Naruto hard in the arm, who was practically drooling onto this shoes. "At least I'm not."

Jiraiya put his hands on his hips and glared down at him. "Nobody likes a know-it-all."

Sasuke glared right back.

"Right... Well. Anyway," Jiraiya mumbled, and pulled a slender scroll from a case hanging from his belt. "Usually this only works if you've already signed the contract, but...eh. Rules were made for breaking." He unfurled the scroll on the ground, revealing a complex array of interlocking patterns. It looked a little like a summoning seal, although the few elements Mikoto recognized were facing the wrong direction from the blank circle in the center.

Mikoto knelt down in front of the boys, and put an arm around each. "I have to go now," she said, squeezing them tightly. "Jiraiya-sama will take you someplace far away, where no one will be able to find you. He was a student of the Hokage, and you can trust him to protect you."

Jiraiya drew a kunai from somewhere, and cut deeply into his left palm. He wet a fingertip in the pooling blood and motioned Naruto over. "Stand in the middle of that. And _stay still_."

Naruto took one look at Mikoto's face, and did as he was told. Jiraiya sketched out a small seal on his forehead and stepped back.

"Gross," he said, blowing some hair out of his face.

"Don't touch that, brat," he said, kneeling. "I'm almost done with you." He placed his bloody palm on the abstract hand symbol at the edge of the scroll, and with a small puff of smoke the boy disappeared. "You next."

Mikoto pushed Sasuke gently in Jiraiya's direction, and he stepped reluctantly onto the scroll to have the same character painted on his forehead. She took a deep breath. "I want you to know...your father and I love you very much. Both of us only wanted what was best for you. Don't ever forget that."

"Mom...no..." he murmured, looking at her imploringly. He could tell there was something desperately wrong, and again she wouldn't be able to tell him what.

She could only hope he would forgive her for her lies of omission, given time. It was a knife in her chest, the knowledge she'd never see him win his hitai-ate, a proud victory in the exam arena, perhaps even the coat of the Chief of Police. She'd never meet the first girlfriend he'd bring home, stand behind him at his wedding, or rock her grandchildren to sleep. All of that would pass her by, but he'd be _alive._ Perhaps not entirely whole, but alive. "Goodbye, Sasuke," she said, as a few tears began to spill over his bravado.

Jiraiya knelt and activated the reverse-summoning again before Sasuke could step off, then rolled up the scroll and stowed it away.

"Hey," he said gruffly. "None of that. I hate to see a pretty woman cry."

Mikoto took a deep breath, and rubbed savagely at the tears that were threatening to fall.

He clapped his palms together and looked up at her. "I'll take care of them. Good luck," he said, and vanished.

Sun Bear slung Mikoto's pack over his shoulder. He took several steps back from the group, then nicked his thumb on his katana and pressed his palm to the dirt. "Kuchiyose no jutsu," he said.

There was a whirl of smoke, and an enormous bat with an elongated face and keen red eyes appeared in the road. Around its torso was a light mesh harness. It blinked in the sunlight, and yawned hugely. "Oh, good. Nobody's trying to kill us. Hello, captain," he said, nodding absently at Kakashi. "Transport job, then?"

"Ah," the blond ANBU said. "Miss, if you'll come with me. There's a cliff nearby; he can't take off from level ground if he's carrying passengers."

Iriko looked back to Mikoto and bit her lip. "Will I see you again?" she asked.

"No. Probably not," Mikoto answered. On impulse, Iriko threw her arms around her. "Thank you. For everything you've done for me," she whispered to the girl. She quickly let go, embarrassed by the blank white faces surrounding her, and turned to follow behind Sun Bear and his summon with her head bowed.

Kakashi signaled to the others, and Genma leapt into the trees with him. "Are you coming?" he asked.

"In a moment. Don't wait up for me," she said over her shoulder. There was a slight rustle of branches as the two men disappeared. Daishiro hadn't moved. He pulled off his mask and looped the black strap in his fist. It was a breach of protocol, but they were alone, and it wasn't as if his identity was unknown to her. It had been a long time since she'd seen his face. His features were attractive but not remarkably so, except for the red Yūhi eyes and the unflappable good humor that could usually be seen sparkling in them. Many people found their hue unnerving, but what were crimson eyes to an Uchiha?

Mikoto shivered under her rain cloak, and crossed her arms over her chest, beneath the slick material. "I'm not going to see them again," she whispered. Nowhere in the historical records had Shikaku's research team found a case of a victim completely recovering from Madara's Tsukuyomi. Most lapsed into a coma and never regained consciousness. The unlucky ones did wake, their psyche shattered like porcelain, and no treatment could fill in the chips and cracks that turned familiar faces into demons and familiar streets into a terrifying labyrinth. "Daishiro?" she said, her voice cracking. "I'm so scared."

He let the mask fall to the ground, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, smoothing down her hair with his gloved hands. "You're the bravest woman I know," he said. "Right alongside Kushina."

In their younger days, she would have bristled at being compared to the reckless redhead, but today it was the highest of praise. Daishiro had seen everything, helpless to aid the Hokage and his wife behind the barrier Minato had erected around themselves and the Kyūbi. Even after the demon had been ripped out of her body, Kushina had still been able to restrain it with her chakra chains. She'd allowed herself to be impaled on one of its talons, rather than see the tip score the fragile skin of her newborn son.

Mikoto let her head dip until it rested perfectly against the curve of Daishiro's neck. A few cold drops from the leaves overhead joined the silent tears soaking into the fabric of his uniform.

"And since I won't have the chance to say this again..." he said. "I thought I'd be able to move on once you were married. But I couldn't. I tried a few times, to settle down, but it never worked out. After the third broken engagement I realized the reason I couldn't be satisfied. It wasn't any fault of theirs, but I couldn't help but compare my lovers to you. They weren't as intelligent, or as caring, or as beautiful."

"I watched Fugaku press the life out of you for years, and there wasn't a god damn thing I could do about it. Watching you fade from a brilliant kunoichi to a smothered housewife was torture. You were the best out of all of us, and you knew it, too," he said, with a small, defeated-sounding laugh. "When that fire finally died, I joined ANBU because it felt like I didn't have anything left to lose...the one thing I really wanted was already gone."

Her breath caught in a sob. How different things might have been if he'd been the father to her children. He would have waited until the war was over, and she was ready to begin a family. He was patient, kind, so difficult to anger. He told tasteless jokes that had made her laugh for all the wrong reasons. And he had seen, in Kakashi, the toll excellence took on small boys who were forced to grow up far too quickly. Even if she'd passed all her talents on to their children, he would have ensured they had space to _be_ children, before they were set to a shinobi's bloody tasks.

"Imagine my surprise when I learned it was _you_ who initiated the counterinsurgency from within the Uchiha clan itself," he continued. "I discovered the woman I loved wasn't gone forever. I suppose what I'm trying to say is...if I'd known what I know now...I would have done things differently. I would have married you in a heartbeat, and given Naruto-kun the family Kushina would have wanted for him."

Mikoto drew back from his embrace. As much as she wanted to stay here in his arms, they were running out of time. "I should have fought harder," she said, and swallowed hard. "I wish I had. If you'd asked, I would have said yes." She raised herself on her toes to brush her lips against his. He took her invitation and clasped her so tightly her breath was forced out in a longing sigh.

-ooo-

The light was still on in the master bedroom of the great house. Mikoto slid open the front door, and ascended the stairs. Fugaku had donned the mail armor he rarely wore, the links glinting beneath the neck of his long coat, as he zipped it closed. He narrowed his eyes in confusion when he saw she had returned. "You should have been on your way to the summer house. Where's Sasuke?"

"He and Iriko ought to be there already," she lied. "I doubled back, because...I needed to be here. With you. However this ends."

He looked ready to object, but the hard line of his jaw softened. "Then stay hidden here until I call for you," he said, placing his hand heavily on her shoulder for emphasis. "The Hokage's men may retaliate, and I don't want you to be caught in it. I'll send some of my officers to protect the house."

"Thank you," she murmured.

"I have to go," he said, throwing on his flak jacket, and moving towards the door. "It's nearly time for the operation to begin."

"Wait," she said, pulling him gently towards her by the fabric of his sleeve. She pushed herself to the tips of her toes, and pressed a kiss against his lips. It was the last one they would ever share, and what that kiss meant revolted her. "Be careful. Please."

He indulged her show of affection without complaint, breathing in the perfume of her hair. "I will. For you."

He stepped over the threshold of the room, and Mikoto heard the jingling of keys as he unlocked the chest in the hall closet that held his shinobi tools. While he was occupied selecting his weaponry, she used her long nails to peel off the latex barrier she'd pasted to her lips, careful not to touch the drug-impregnated surface with her fingertips. She dropped the oily scrap behind the bed frame and glanced out the window. It would be starting any moment now, and not at all in the way Fugaku had planned.

As he let the lid of his weapons chest drop, there was a scream and roar of fire from one of the grand houses further down the block. Fugaku swore, and rushed past her to their bedroom window. ANBU agents in gas masks darted in and out of the noxious yellowish cloud writhing around the windows. As he watched in horror, the same smoke erupted around another home.

"We've been betrayed," Fugaku said, in a shocked voice that quickly deepened into scorching anger. "Itachi..." he snarled.

Mikoto imposed herself quietly between her husband and the door. "It wasn't Itachi," she said. "At least, not wholly Itachi."

Fugaku tore himself away from the scene at the window, and took a few steps toward her. "What? How do you know this?" he asked, a horrible suspicion dawning in his bearing.

"Because it was _me_," she said dully. "That ANBU is here is my doing. From the day I learned what you were planning. The Mizukage was using you, as he was being used by none other than your precious Uchiha Madara. He planned to destroy Konoha, and you would have done it for hi—"

In a flash of movement, he backhanded her across the face, and she stumbled backward into the banister. She let the blow connect; she deserved it, and the taste of blood that rapidly filled her mouth. Never had he struck her before, and even this was weak. He could have killed her with that one strike, if he hadn't let sentimentality get the best of him. That blow might have cowed a timid wife, but it was no way to fight against another shinobi. As she'd suspected, his hands were bound by the love he thought they'd shared. She stayed crumpled on the hallway floor, and activated her sharingan. He was much stronger than she was, but strength was hardly everything.

She spun to her feet, and opened her mouth as if to scream, kunai already in hand from the holster secreted in her skirts. The genjutsu welled up in his ears, and he flinched away from the piercing shrieks echoing inside his own head. He dispelled it quickly, and drew his tantō from the sheath at his back, but Mikoto had readied the second in those brief moments. Her eyes drank in every inconsistency in his stance. He wanted this fight over quickly, and didn't want to hurt her. He probably wasn't even aware of it yet, but the poisoned kiss was beginning to do its work.

The sharingan could process enormous quantities of information, but even the legendary dōjutsu had its limits. She shattered his field of vision into a kaleidoscope of conflicting images, intensifying the dizziness that was beginning to take its toll on his balance. Three tomoe could see through any illusion, but that information was useless if the brain was already overloaded with stimuli. He struck out at her and misjudged the distance, only barely. The enclosed space was not to her advantage. His reach was better, and if their blades locked he would overpower her. She danced out of reach, pressing down hard on the disorienting genjutsu whenever he came close to breaking it.

His swipes at her were quickly becoming more awkward, and his pupils had widened almost to the ring of tomoe. His strokes were too tentative, failing at the last moment to score her pale skin, although he did manage, at last, to twist the kunai out of her grasp. His judgment was just as impaired. He had fixated on her, instead of leaving to attempt to salvage the situation outside.

His equilibrium finally overcome by the drug, Fugaku stumbled backwards out of her reach and into their mirror, casting shards of glass across the floor with a shriek. He tried to rise, and fell back to his hands and knees, his eyes unfocused, as if he could barely recognize the pain of the glass that had just pierced his skin. The deliriant made the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion, and distorted perception enough to make it extremely difficult to distinguish reality from illusion, even with a sharingan. Under its influence, they stopped caring. His defenses against her had been shattered, and she could now use her genjutsu to its most devastating potential. An illusion of pain was most effective to briefly immobilize an enemy, but one of peace and pleasure was less likely to be broken.

She enveloped him in a new illusion, one grounded in a shared memory. She removed the sting of the broken glass and the chill in the air, and enriched the breeze with gentle warmth and a symphony of crickets and cicadas. He was still fighting her, if weakly. Mikoto pushed harder, seeping through the cracks the drugs had opened for her. The crimson faded from his irises.

She smiled down at him, the faint creases around her eyes smoothed to nothing, and her hair just brushing her chin. She sat down on the bed, cradling a tiny bundle of white quilting, bringing herself into the illusion with him. Heedless of the glass embedded in his hands and feet, he rose unsteadily and joined her.

"Would you like to hold him?" she asked.

"Ah," he said. "Although...I'm not sure how."

She smiled at his hesitancy, so rare and so sweet. "Make sure you support his head, and he'll be fine. You won't break him." She lifted the newborn towards him, and waited with patient hands until the baby was settled comfortably in the crook of his elbow. Fugaku looked down at his firstborn son with a mix of apprehension and awe. Itachi worked one arm free of the swaddling, and his father met the groping fingers with his free hand. Itachi's grip tightened immediately, his tiny fingers barely meeting in a fist around his father's thumb. It was a reflex all newborns possessed, but to his father, a miracle. They looked at each other for a time, until the baby yawned and closed his eyes, drifting off safe in his father's arms.

Mikoto place her arm on her husband's shoulder, the picture of a loving family. With her other hand, she palmed another kunai from the holster strapped to her thigh. She leaned in closer, her cheek against his hair. The handle was slick with sweat. She squeezed her eyes shut, her throat constricting. "I..." she began. What was there to say? So much had gone wrong. Recriminations and apologies could never right things now. This wasn't fair, it was wrong, but peace came with a price, and Madara had forced her husband to pay it.

It was the boy in his arms, now a man, that had been given the order to assassinate him. As he grew she hadn't been able to spare that baby very much, but she could at least spare him that.

"I loved you," she said, and thrust the point into Fugaku's neck. She channeled a burst of medical chakra in with it, overwhelming his consciousness in a split second. At least there would be no pain. He collapse against her, and the illusion dissolved. She held him as the blood cascaded over her hands. Minutes crept by, and the current slowed. His chest stilled, and then the beating of his heart. Mikoto laid him down on the bed, and walked to the bathroom to scrub the blood from her skin.

Soap and water had done very little to cleanse her of the act she'd just committed, but nevertheless Mikoto pulled on her uniform and hung the viper mask around her neck. It had a radio built around the air filter; over the harshened sound of her breathing she opened the channel to her team. "Viper, reporting in," she said, her voice flat, "I have completed my secondary objective—the target has been eliminated. No witnesses. Wolf, Hound, you may commence operations."

There was a brief hiss of static. "Hound acknowledges," Kakashi said, and closed the channel.

"Wolf acknowledges," Itachi said. "We'll rendezvous at the shrine."

"You're sure he'll come?" she asked.

"Yes," her son's crackled. "There is nothing he cares for more than vengeance."

The radio buzzed once more, and was silent.

Mikoto clenched her jaw so hard she felt as though her teeth might crack, and let her legs give way under her. _I just murdered your father!_ She screamed inside of her own head. _Is that all you have to say to me?_

She glanced at her husb—the body crumpled on the bed. The kunoichi in her noted dryly that the cupboards for the futons were the perfect size to conceal an adult male corpse. The wife was on the verge of surrendering to hysteria. With her own hands, she'd killed the man she'd slept beside for fourteen years. The man whose children she'd born. The man who_ trusted_ _her_.

Her eyes began to burn, welling and then overflowing with tears that soaked onto the rugs. She knew it would end this way, but, up until that very last moment, her blade against his skin, she'd denied it. She'd denied a lot of things. Despite the lies she'd told Itachi and the Hokage, not even knowing they were false...she had loved her husband once.

Fugaku had been many things: arrogant, short-tempered, reactionary. What he had never been was someone she could hate.

He had been kind to her, even if it was in the stifling, paternalistic way that had driven her mad when she was young. He gave her a beautiful home, and the license to keep it up as she saw fit. After Itachi was born, he rarely raised his voice to her. He loved his children. He loved his clan so much it had killed him. With the information available to him, how could anyone fault him for the decision he'd made? The coup hadn't been to selfishly secure his own power. Everything he'd done, he'd done for the children of the Uchiha, to ensure they would grow up free. He hadn't even been an enemy of Konoha, not really. He wanted to purge the village of injustice. He wanted to protect it as much as any of the hokages had done.

Her eyes ached from crying, but there was no time to indulge herself in that pain. Her work was not yet over. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, and tried to deactivate her sharingan.

Only...she couldn't. Chakra flowed into the irises against her conscious will, and the ache became a searing pain. She gasped and folded over against her thighs, shuddering against the urge to cry out in agony.

As suddenly as it appeared, the pain faded away. She opened her eyes. Her palms were shining with tears that left a rusty streak on her breastplate when she rubbed them dry. She picked her way to a fragment of the mirror Fugaku had broken as he fell. She swept her hair from her eyes, and tilted the glass to reflect a jagged shard of her face. Two overlapping trefoils of red on black looked back at her. She recoiled from the strange new pattern in the familiarity of her sharingan, horrified, and the red faded as her vision returned to normal.

The Mangekyō. Just as the hidden text said it would appear. She threw the mirror shard against the wall, feeling defiled by this power she hadn't asked for and didn't want. She'd failed to save Fugaku, like Itachi had failed to save Shisui. Had some part of them _wanted _this? Were the Uchiha really this corrupted by power lust? How different, really, were she and Madara? Her breathing began to cycle faster and faster, until her head began to swim and—

_No. _

She was a jōnin of Konoha. She had a task to complete. With tremendous effort, she forced the hysteria down, and locked it tightly away with the regrets, the guilt, and the grief that were as much a mark of a shinobi as their hitai-ate. She pulled the mask over her face, cinching the straps uncomfortably tight to make sure it sealed.

For now, there was only the mission.


	17. Chapter 17

WARNING. This chapter is what earns this fic an M rating. Let's just say Madara is a lot more…creative with his Tsukuyomi than Itachi ever was. The squeamish are advised to maybe not read this while eating.

* * *

Mikoto couldn't hear it, but she could sense her teammates' arrival on the tiles above her head. She swung her legs over the bedroom window frame, and dropped on the overhanging roof. The yellowish gas billowed into the night sky, obscuring the sight, if not sound, of the combat still taking place further away. The air filter on the mask was good, but not perfect. Her eyes began to prickle and water from the chemical, but it never got worse than the sting of a cut onion.

Aside from Kakashi and Daishiro, who insisted on being part of her escort team, she did not know any of these men by name, or anything about them but that she could trust them with her life. The best of Konoha usually joined ANBU, and the best of ANBU were standing here, with her. Kakashi gave the 'move out' signal with his right hand. The rest of the team fell into position around her, an escort formation that would shield her from attack and allow her to use her illusions to their full advantage. Most genjutsu specialists were back-of-the-line fighters, since their techniques, while momentarily disabling, couldn't cause physical damage to their opponents. Many shinobi who preferred hand-to-hand combat scoffed at their illusions for this reason, writing them off as fussy cowards and no real threat. Mikoto liked enemies with this attitude. It made them easier prey.

The Naka shrine was at the edge of the new Uchiha district that had been established after the Kyūbi leveled the sprawling clan compound near the old village center. Her team leapt from roof to roof, until one of a small group of men standing on the shingles called out to her. Although his face was concealed behind a black gas mask, she recognized his voice. It was Yuji, dressed in the utilitarian gray and black armor the police donned for high-risk engagements. Three women were huddled on the tile, their hands and eyes bound, and a string of chakra suppression seals cinched tightly around their necks. The two younger ones were sobbing in pain and terror. Their mother bore the pain in silence. Two ANBU agents stood guard over them.

"I'll only be a moment," she said quietly into the radio receiver.

Kakashi nodded his understanding, and called a halt. Their teammates slipped into the shadows to wait.

Mikoto landed lightly on the roof across from her brother. "Do you know many of the adults joined us?" she asked. "Or at least refused to fight the Hokage's men?"

"A little over half, I think. Mostly the youngest, chūnin and below," Yuji said.

It was better than she'd hoped. They were the weakest members of the clan, both physically and politically, and stood to lose the most should the coup succeed. In war, it was the genin and chūnin that died in the greatest numbers.

"We're still waiting for the reports from Team One and Thirteen," he explained, "but there were only four casualties reported so far: one ANBU and three of the rebels. Unfortunately...that included an Academy student who attacked Team Five. He was clipped in the throat by a shuriken before whoever he attacked realized it was just a kid. He bled out before one of the ANBU medics could get to him."

Her jaw clenched. One child was still too many. "Who was it?"

"Amari's son," he answered.

"Make sure the Hokage gives him full honors at the funeral. He was too young to know what he was doing."

"Understood."

"I need to make the rendezvous," she said, drawing back. "This isn't over yet."

"I know," he said, but caught her arm. "Mikoto? Whatever happens tonight...you know you can count on me to look after Sasuke. Itachi too, although I...I don't think he needs much looking after anymore. With the mission fee, Kaname can cut back her hours at the hospital, and we've got that extra bedroom..."

"Anything for your big sister?" she asked.

"Anything," he echoed.

Suddenly Kakashi's voiced buzzed in her ear. "Sorry to break this up, but we have incoming. The Uchiha assassination teams broke through our lines at the Hokage's tower. One of them was a fūton user and they have a—fucking hell!" Distantly, through the receiver, she could hear brick shattering and a sonorous clatter, like someone had upended a load of timber into the street.

"Hound!" she whispered fiercely. "Hound, come in!"

She waited a few horrible moments, and his voice returned, slightly winded. "Make that two huge centipedes. Right between us and the primary target. I'd guess they're looking for Fugaku…or for who killed him."

She looked over in the direction of the village center. Something long and sinuous raised its head, silhouetted against the stars, and dove down to spear some unfortunate shinobi below. Mikoto swore. She'd already cut it too close, taking out Fugaku by herself. A delay like this and she might miss the deadline for Itachi's planned rendezvous with Madara, which would be beyond catastrophic. She'd assumed there would be a few skirmishes on the way to the Naka shrine, but she hadn't planned for those two brothers on the Uchiha interception teams to summon something, let alone two somethings, that _big._ The power expenditure required for a summon that size verged on suicidal, but at this point they had nothing to lose. Death by chakra-depletion shock was probably preferable to whatever the Torture & Interrogation Force had in store for them.

The creatures were closing the distance with horrifying speed. There wouldn't be any easy way around them now. A genjutsu of concealment would fare poorly against that many sharingan, and the centipedes wouldn't be affected by it at all. They'd have to punch their way through.

"Tiger, Badger, stick close to Viper, and stay on the defensive. Don't get anywhere near the summons unless you have no other choice," Kakashi ordered. "Everyone else, Formation Seven, engage at will."

Mikoto opened a channel to the rest of their team. "Their bites are extremely poisonous," she informed them. "If you're clipped by one, do not, I repeat, _do not, _delay in find yourself medical treatment. By the time the facial paralysis sets in, it's too late. You'll have suffocated by the time someone gets you to the hospital." There was a terse chorus of acknowledgement from her team members. She was intimately familiar with the effects of the venom; the colorless, bitter-smelling liquid in which she dipped her senbon had been a gift from Uchiha Ike. It was far more potent directly from the source, and killed by respiratory paralysis in less than ten minutes.

"Get those three out of here," she ordered Yuji, gesturing at the women huddled on the roof. "It will be all close-combat specialists with them. You'll only get in the way."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, snapping the ties around their ankles, and pulling the younger ones to their feet. The old woman he lifted bodily, and leapt away to safety. The two agents that had been guarding them vaulted over the rooftops to join Kakashi.

Mikoto paused to scout out the area with her chakra senses. The nearby houses were empty, their inhabitants already fled or arrested. She was figuratively nearsighted, far better at discerning detail at close range, but she could detect several hostile chakra signatures converging on their position—at least seven, probably eight. They were coming in a pincer formation, closing around her advance guard. "I won't be any good against those summons, but I sense at least seven or eight men," she told her defenders. "I'll take care of as many as I can from back here."

While the melee fighters got into position, Mikoto linked her hands in the Ram seal in preparation for her first attack. She targeted the first of the rebels as soon as she had visual contact. Three more swift hand seals, and the signals his brain was receiving from his inner ear were delivered in a disorienting jumble. Suddenly stricken with intense vertigo, he fell flat on his face and rolled to the edge of the roof. He tried to get his footing again, and failed miserably, stumbling drunkenly over the lip with a cry. She'd done the same to the second before he hit the ground. Their balance destroyed, they wouldn't be able to take the fall properly, and they'd break bones. Maybe their necks.

Two down. Six to go. Someone in the front line tossed out the last of his gas grenades, obscuring her view of the battle. All of her most powerful genjutsu required line-of-sight, and one with an area effect could too easily ensnare one of her allies. She'd done what she could. Now it was up to them.

On her right, Tiger clapped his hands together, lacing his fingers, and wood sprouted from the ground where the men had fallen. The twining branches swept the two downed rebels off their feet, and immobilized their hands in tough wooden shackles. Mikoto did a double take. The mokuton was supposed to have died with the Shodai Hokage.

"Is something wrong, ma'am?" he asked, in the husky tenor of a teenager. "It was my understanding we were to take them alive."

"No. Nothing," she said hastily. Fifty-nine babies were supposed to have died in the course of Orochimaru's experiments with Senju Hashirama's remains. That old snake was a pedant. Fifty-nine seemed like a strange number of subjects to choose. Sixty was even. He would've liked even.

An unearthly scream from one of the summons tore her mind away from idle speculation. It was undulating wildly, its head haloed in sparking bluish light. As she watched, a spear of it punctured the carapace, and emerged from the creature's underside. Those things had armor plating at least a finger width thick, but the jutsu had somehow punched through it _twice_. A figure with pale hair leapt free of the massive body, as it crashed into the cobblestones. If the second went down that quickly, they would make it.

"How many men did you say there were?" Tiger asked suddenly.

"Eight, I think," she answered.

"That's what I thought you said," he said uneasily. "But my moku bunshin can only account for seven."

She should have been able to spot someone trying to slink through the streets under a chameleon genjutsu, and an elemental affinity for earth was extremely rare among the Uchiha, so that precluded him traveling underground. She fanned her senses out again. "One did sneak through. Damn it—I can't see him," she whispered. "How did he get past...?" Mikoto frowned. His chakra signature was blinking in and out, like an electric light. It felt very similar to what she could sense the handful of times she'd tried sparring with Minato, and there was only one person on the assault team who could use a jutsu even vaguely similar to his signature technique. With Shisui dead, he was a contender of the title for the most dangerous fighter among the Uchiha.

Daishiro took note of the way her hands tightened on the roof ridge, and sighed. "We're in trouble, aren't we," he quipped. The more flippant Daishiro got, the more scared he really was.

"It's Uchiha Hirai," Mikoto said. "I'm sure of it. He has a jikūkan jutsu that allows him to phase briefly through solid objects—he must be traveling through the houses. I served with him in Iwa. And I remember him being a fanatic about his blast goggles."

"No gas grenades? Shit," he said, looking away. "I'll take him. He's probably figured out we're protecting you for a reason."

"Going against an Uchiha one to one and at close range is suicide," Tiger said. "I'm coming with you."

"Don't be stupid. You'll stay here," he commanded the younger man, glancing at Mikoto. "I know how to fight a sharingan. I'll be all right."

Mikoto locked her jaw to keep the tearful objections lodged in her throat. It was true that he'd come up with a few tricks over the years to foil her eyes in the training field. But he'd still lost half of those matches, and they hadn't been against a melee combat specialist. Badgers were truly vicious creatures when you crossed them, tireless and brave and willing to attack predators much larger and stronger than themselves. If their homes were in danger, they would battle bears. She could only hope Daishiro was going to live up to his codename.

"Try to draw him out with one of your moku bunshin. I need room to maneuver. Taicho," he said, lapsing back into her old title, "please, guide me." Without waiting for an answer, he jumed to the ground. Tiger held out his right hand, and the flesh beneath his gloves began to writhe. What she realized was wood seemed to pour out of his arm, and take shape into a perfect duplicate of his body, albeit one with a very odd texture to its clothing and hair. The moku bunshin swung itself down against one of the pillars of the house, and melted into the wood grain without a trace. The whole procedure was both fascinating and repulsive, and Mikoto could see immediately why Orochimaru wanted this nature transformation so badly. Its usefulness as a tool of espionage and assassination would be unparalleled.

From the street, a thick darkness began to bubble up like oil, from where Daishiro had landed. It climbed to the rooftops in a cloud that encompassed half the small block, lapping against her ankles in its own rhythm, and undisturbed by the breeze. She could see but not feel it; she knew from experience it could not be burned or blown away, and no flares or flash grenades could pierce it. This nature transformation consumed light itself, using the energy provided by an enemy's attempt to dispel it to grow ever larger. The first time Daishiro had used it on her, even in its flawed, experimental form, it had given her claustrophobic nightmares for days. In the fifteen years since, it seemed he'd perfected it.

There was a crash from below, and then the erratic sounds of steel on wood as a handful of kunai flew and missed. It was going to be a game of stealth now, although their side had a significant advantage in her sensory abilities. A low groaning sound rose from beneath them, and several of the houses lurched on their foundations. That would probably be Daishiro using a doton to reshape the terrain, and confuse the Uchiha's environmental awareness even further. She whispered direction as he closed in. There was the keening of more blades sailing through the air, and someone grunted sharply as one struck flesh.

Crazed laughter filtered up from the intangible, inky muck. "You think I'm afraid of the dark, ANBU?" he called, his voice harsh with pain. Daishiro must have taken first blood.

Her teammate didn't justify this with an answer of any kind. It would be a bunshin, trying to soak up his reserve kunai.

The single enemy chakra signature below split into six, guessing correctly one of the ANBU team had a sensor with them. Mikoto punched the switched embedded in the mask. "There are solid ones out there now," she warned him. "Five of them. I'm not going to be much help to you anymore." He didn't reply, for fear of giving away his position. His opponent's real body could be anywhere, and Daishiro would have to find it by process of elimination. There were two pops as the air rushed in to fill the space previously occupied by Hirai's kage bunshin.

He got lucky on the third, and steel struck steel for a few brief moments. Hirai cursed, and then the silence returned. It stretched out into seconds, then minutes. The others were still occupied with the second summon, and however many Uchiha were with it. There would be no reinforcements. It wasn't until Mikoto's chest was burning that she realized she wasn't breathing.

Their enemy's voice surfaced again, from the street behind her this time. "Do you think I don't know who you are? We were in the same platoon for nine months. Grand old times. It's all right if you don't remember me, though, I won't take it personally. You were always too busy with that two-faced little slut sitting on the roof to spend much time with us boys in the barracks."

Mikoto went stiff. He must have recognized her jutsu when she'd used it on his two companions, just like she had recognized his, and his guess was confirmed by the obvious presence of a sensor-type. His target had never been Daishiro. This whole time, he'd been getting in position to deal with _her_.

"Fugaku-sama did this for _your_ children, you ungrateful bitch!" he shrieked.

"_Shit_," Tiger spat. He knocked her down against the tiles, and frantically erected a conical barrier of heavy wood around both of them. The planks locked just as a dull roar and a whirlwind of fire came screaming up from the street. The concussive force was enough to rip free parts of the overhanging roof, and send shards of ceramic splintering into the air with a sound like a hailstorm. Mikoto bit back a scream as the roof beams beneath their feet lurched, crackling ominously from the additional weight of the wooden wall. Tiger's barrier began to smoke, and a red glow seeped through the seams in the planks. They were trapped.

He dropped to his knees, and forced more wooden supports into the house, trying desperately to shore up the collapsing structure long enough to allow them to weather the firestorm.

After what felt like an eternity, the three extra chakra signatures disappeared. Hirai's kage bunshin had burned themselves out.

"It's over," she said. "Drop us down into the house, and I'll have two kage bunshin scatter as soon as you release the wall."

"Got it," he gasped, breathless from the strain of keeping the house standing. A hole opened in the crisscrossing branches beneath their feet, letting in a puff of black smoke. "Let me douse the fire, I'll go first." He lowered himself down using a self-made ladder; prodding the floor gingerly to be sure the damaged structure could support his weight. Satisfied, he used a few hand seals to draw a fine rain from the broken pipes, and signaled for her to descend. Even with the protection of their air filters, breathing was difficult. The air she sucked in left her lungs aching with heat, and hungry for more. If they stayed here long they would both suffocate.

She followed him, leaving behind two kage bunshin crouched under the dome. One transformed itself into Tiger, and the other performed a genjutsu of its own, with its creator as the target. Mikoto experienced a brief moment of double vision, as what the bunshin was seeing with its right eye became what _she _was seeing as well. She covered her left with her glove to let herself focus.

"What are we going to do?" Tiger asked, panting. "I don't have much chakra left, and there's no way in hell I can take him down hand-to-hand."

She had an idea, but one or two details needed to be confirmed first. "Do you have one last moku bunshin left in you?"

"Mmm."

"If I'm right, that's all you're going to need. Let the wall go," she ordered him. "I'll explain he's busy with my duplicates."

Tiger put his hands together, and she could hear the heavy dome shatter outward. Her clones leapt out, covered by the rain of splinters. The one still wearing her face executed a graceless somersault, and landed heavily on the least damaged portion of the roof. The other, disguised poorly as Tiger, drew out a handful of kunai in quick succession. Two of the three passed harmlessly through Hirai's body, to clatter against the roof tiles of a neighboring house. The third he dodged, a quick sideslip that was almost impossible to see without a sharingan. The time limit for his phasing was only a second. Promising. She watched the embers fouling the air closely, as the false Tiger completed the arc, finding his footing with considerably more finesse than the first clone. The sparks had drifted through Hirai's face and torso, but settled on his sandals. More promising yet. He couldn't make his entire body insubstantial at once or he'd fall clear through whatever surface he was standing on.

Hirai lazily tossed a few shuriken in the direction of the false Tiger, which disappeared with a pop as it failed to evade the last one. Daishiro's efforts hadn't been in vain. The man was bleeding heavily from a deep gash in his thigh and another at his hairline, the blood flowing around the blast goggles cinched against his face and soaking into his collar. "Is that all you can muster, you whore?" he snarled. "Not everyone in Konoha agreed you were the wonder child Sakumo always believed you were_. _Some of us were placing bets on how many jōnin it took you to fuck your way to a promotion."

The real Mikoto let the insults wash over her dispassionately, although her clone seemed to be having a more difficult time controlling itself. Hirai hadn't changed much since they'd been stationed at the same outpost in the war; his conversation was as revolting as she'd remembered. He didn't confine his beastly nature to insults, either. His first wife had died under mysterious circumstances three years ago, a civilian woman of whom Mikoto had been rather fond. Despite what she felt was overwhelming evidence the woman had been battered to death, the police took care of their own, and the investigation quietly faded. This was one man the Uchiha would be better off without.

_Go, now,_ she signaled to Tiger, and drew the katana from the sheath on her back. He nodded, and melted silently into the floor. His last surviving moku bunshin raised its arms high, and stretched them to reach the ceiling beams. It merged into the wood and disappeared.

"How dare you!" her bunshin screamed above her head. "If you kill me the Hokage will—

"Will what?" he laughed, coming closer. She paced backward with every step he took, until her real body was just under and behind his.

He pushed the bunshin down, and swung a kunai into his left hand, stilling its feeble attempts to fight back. He crouched, and slid its mask aside with the knife's point, running his hands roughly over her face and neck. "I'm a dead man already," he whispered. "All I want is the pleasure of seeing you squirm under me a little before I die. But first..." he cocked his head, so he would just be able to make out the real Tiger emerging from another roof. He threw out what looked like a swarm of shuriken with his free hand. Most of them were illusory, but a few were solid, and glowing faintly blue in her enhanced sight.

"Tiger, move!" her bunshin screamed, too late. As Hirai had predicted, Tiger had chosen to stand his ground, and rely on his mokuton for defense. As impressive as his elemental mastery was, he was still inexperienced, and predictable. Most of the projectiles dissolved as they struck the wooden beams he summoned around himself, but one tore through and into his upper arm, sharp enough to bite into bone.

"I needed to take care of you, boy," Hirai finished.

Tiger let out a choked scream, and fell against the tangle of beams that had sprouted from the roof on which he stood, clutching the gaping wound the chakra-enhanced shuriken left in its wake. The real Mikoto grit her teeth. He was lucky. A little to the left and he would have lost that arm.

A pair of hand emerged from the tangled mess of wood beneath Hirai, and grabbed him by the waist. He glanced behind him, unimpressed.

"Mikoto-san, kill him!" the moku bunshin cried, as its face surfaced from the wood.

He grinned down at her double's shocked expression. "Useless woman."

Mikoto released the split-vision genjutsu her double had placed on her, just as Hirai dropped the kunai and brought his hands together for the single seal he required to phase. In one second, the velocity of a falling human body would place the heart exactly—

There. Her sharingan guiding the thrust with perfect precision, Mikoto took a single step forward, and buried her sword nearly to the hilt in his insubstantial ribcage. His technique released, flesh and bone solid again, and he look down at the pristine blade protruding from his chest. For once in his life, it seemed Uchiha Hirai had nothing to say.

"Understand how I made jōnin now?" she whispered, and wrenched her sword free as he crumpled to the ground. She left him there to gasp out his last pitiful breaths, and picked her way out of the remains of the smoldering house. The second centipede she couldn't see; it seemed to have gone down while she and Tiger dealt with Hirai. She felt stupid and slow, like her head was packed with cottondown. She'd stayed in the thin and smoky air too long, and the oxygen deprivation was getting to her.

Mikoto shook her head to clear it, and felt a piece of plastic slap against her neck. Her radio earpiece. It must have come loose when Tiger knocked her down. She replaced the coil of plastic, and winced at the volume of Kakashi's frantic calls in the receiver.

"Viper here," she responded, her voice harsh with smoke. "Tiger took a bad hit, almost severed his arm. I'm not hurt, but..."

_Daishiro_. Panic welled up in her head, so quickly she felt like she was drowning in it. She leapt into the street, following the faded echoes of his chakra signature. The darkness had almost steamed into nothing, and as it dissipated the aftermath of Hirai's firestorm was revealed. The ground was rent and blackened, the fire gnawing hungrily at the panels of the ruined houses. She turned sharply around the corner, and found Daishiro motionless in the midst of it, half-buried in rubble and his mask broken. The remains of an earthen wall smoldered around him. This was far beyond her ability to heal, but she forced chakra into her hands anyway.

"Mikoto!" Kakashi called, from above her head. He landed beside her, and roughly tore her hands away.

"What the hell are you doing?" she snarled.

"I could ask the same of you. You're not the team medic and you have nine minutes," he said, not letting her go. "_This_ was the reason the Hokage assigned the clan head's assassination to Itachi—you've been off active duty for too long. Lock it down, or the mission is blown and _we are all dead._"

"I can't—" she mouthed. "I..." He was right. She _knew_ he was right, from the moment she'd stepped out of the Hokage's office, but…how could she abandon Daishiro now? She hadn't been able to do a thing to prevent Kushina's death, or Sakumo-sensei's. Circumstances had forced her away from both their sides, and she couldn't even give them the comfort of a friend's hands on their own as their lives bled away.

"We don't have room for any more mistakes," Kakashi said fiercely, as if he could read the thoughts tumbling around in her head. "What Daishiro did, he did to give _you_ the chance to save Konoha. Don't let that go to waste. And he's ANBU. We take care of our own. As soon as you're inside the shrine, I'll make sure they put the best medic we've got on his surgical team."

She nodded mutely, almost beyond grief. Kakashi set off first, at a dead run, and two more members of the escort team fell into stride with him.

_There is only the mission_, she repeated to herself as the roofs flew by beneath her feet. _Only the mission._

-ooo-

The escorts left her at the door of the Naka shrine, vanishing into the trees to tend to their wounded as soon as she was safely delivered to her destination. Its acting captain remained on the stone pathway. Mikoto stopped with one fist clenched on the door handle. "If there's something you wanted to tell me, make it quick."

"Madara told Itachi the destiny of the Uchiha is hatred, that there's no place in your hearts for anything else," he said. "That is the most fucking insulting thing I've heard in my entire life. I want your face to be the last thing he ever sees, and when he dies, I want him to know how wrong he was."

She glanced over her shoulder, but he was already gone. They could waste no more time. Mikoto pulled open the doors, and stepped inside. It wouldn't do her any good, but she drew the katana from its sheath simply to feel the weight of a weapon in her hand. She pulled the mask off, and tossed that aside; it cracked and broke in half upon impact with the floor.

She waited. The shutters were closed and the torches unlit; it was dark and utterly still.

A breathe of wind blew through the airless room, and then, standing before the altar, was a man. The technique was perfect in its simplicity. No smoke, no flash, no bang. He wasn't there, and then he was.

Madara was swathed in a heavy black cloak, and wore a white mask licked with flame. His hair was long, cut ragged like a lion's mane, and as black as it had been when he was young. His back was unbent by the weight of those long years. She had never felt an aura so strong and so malevolent emanating from a human being. It seemed to freeze the very air in her lungs, prickle over her skin like a spider's legs.

He stepped down the three stairs to face her. "You," he said with a tinge of amusement, "are not Itachi_._"

"I am Uchiha Mikoto," she answered, and to her horror her voice trembled. "We cast you out, Madara. You shouldn't have returned."

He laughed, the chilling sound echoing off his mask. "He lost his nerve, and sent his _mother _in his place? The Uchiha have become even more gutless than I remembered them to be."

"You're mistaken," she said. "I chose to be here, because he's my son, and the Uchiha will need him. The coup failed and the Council is dead. The taint you left on us is cleansed."

"That's very touching," he said, mocking, "but this Will of Fire nonsense was getting old when Hashirama was still alive. I intend to snuff it out, and return the Uchiha to their true path."

"They wouldn't follow you then, and they won't now," she said.

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, like she was a particularly dense and obstinate schoolgirl. "That remains to be seen," he said offhandedly. "You do know why I'm here, do you not? I _will_ bring the Uchiha back to their true path...however few of them may remain alive to walk it." He took another step forward. Mikoto could feel herself shaking with the effort of just standing her ground. "But since I am on something of a schedule, I do have one question for you: you're letting the fox kit suck at your teat, are you not? If you tell me where he is, I may be amenable to sparing a few of your favorite Uchiha. You have one more brother, if I'm not mistaken. I believe I killed two of them already, but I am getting on in years, and my memory slips now and then. There are so many corpses to keep track of."

Rage erupted from Mikoto's heart, the flames briefly obscuring her fear, and eating at her edges of her promise to Itachi. Madara would pay for insulting their memories. Her hand tightened on the grip of the katana, and a shiver went down the length of the blade before she got hold of herself again.

"As you were saying?" he said. She could imagine the smug smile beaming at her, from behind that mask.

"Naruto's gone," she said. "Somewhere you'll never find him."

"That is...unlikely," he answered. "But, since I came all the way back to this horrible place, I think I deserve some compensation for my trouble. Leaving Konoha empty-handed wouldn't be very fair, now would it?" He shook his head slightly. "I started too late with Itachi. Pity. But it was considerate of you to give me a spare, if the first one turned out defective."

The rage was pounding in her chest, her temples, circulating around her body with every beat of her heart. He dared, _dared_ to threaten her sons. As far as she was concerned, Itachi was the finest shinobi the clan had ever produced, and not because of how deft a warrior he was. And Sasuke...he would _never _get his hands on Sasuke. She'd slit his throat first, ear to ear, or, no...better yet, she'd take off his whole _head _and let the Uchiha ravens have their fun with his ill-gotten eyes.

"What do you think, hmmm? Perhaps little Sasuke will fare better under my gentle tutela—"

She screamed and charged him, arching her blade across his unprotected neck.

He didn't move. He didn't even flinch. Mikoto stumbled through the strike as her body passed right through his insubstantial cloak, all her muscles ready to encounter a resistance that wasn't there. She recovered her balance on the steps, and whipped around, breathing hard.

"That was rude, I wasn't finished," he scolded. "Respect your great-grandfather, Mikoto-chan."

She was so angry she could barely see. Her tongue was too leaden to form meaning more sophisticated than a snarl. Her hand tensed on the grip of the katana until her knuckles were screaming, and the pain brought her back. The mission. _There was only the mission_.

If she lost her head now, it would be over. Every sacrifice would be in vain. She _knew_ he was a manipulator, like Itachi and like herself, and she'd let him in without a fight. They had never met, and he already knew exactly how to make her lose control. He didn't try to threaten her own life, or intimidate her. He made her feel like the Elders had made her feel, weak and useless, unworthy of the regard even one enemy gives another. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. Some stupid, irrational part of her craved Madara's respect, and he was exploiting this to its fullest potential. The men that truly mattered—Itachi, Daishiro, Kakashi, and the Hokage—they'd already given it to her freely.

Mikoto forced herself to even out her panting breaths. She'd made a _promise, _and there was no vengeance here for her to take. Hashirama Senju and Namikaze Minato hadn't been able to kill Madara on their own, and they were kages. "I won't negotiate with you," she said dully, and tossed the sword aside with a clatter. "There is nothing you can offer that I will betray Konoha to possess."

He snorted. "Then why are you here, exactly? No, never mind, don't tell me. Tracking the jinchūriki down myself is merely inconvenient, not impossible. And your sanctimonious babbling is starting to irritate me, which was a poor choice on your part. I asked nicely, but I can take what I need from you just as easily."

"I'm not afraid to die," she whispered.

"Oh, my dear child...there are worse things."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two kage bunshin coalesce out of the shadows, and felt a surge of gut-freezing panic. That was impossible. They were counting on Madara to be defenseless. He'd explicitly told Itachi he could not split his chakra and still retain enough to perform the Tsukuyomi.

She tried to swallow, and almost choked on her terror. She'd been _wrong_. Madara had lied. Madara lied so easily, and so often, the taste of the truth would probably make him gag. She was a fool to think he would have entrusted a student as intractable as Itachi with all of his secrets. He had less than three seconds. The clones of Madara would devour every one. Then he would kill Itachi, the traitor, then her, and who knows how many other Uchiha before he could be stopped. Even if he was forced to flee today, he would never stop hunting Sasuke and Naruto. There was no guarantee the village could protect them, or even if they would accept that protection. Both took after their mothers far too much. Naruto was brave to the point of foolhardiness. He would never sit idly by while other died for his sake, no matter what the consequences. And Sasuke...that bully in the schoolyard, Jiraiya with an unconscious Naruto slung over his shoulder...if someone he loved was killed, he was going to demand a price in blood, rivers and rivers of it. It didn't matter how stupid it was, or how much exacting that vengeance might hurt. If Madara killed the people Sasuke loved most in the entire world, he wouldn't even have to search. Sasuke would come to him.

The wood paneling of the shrine crisped and disintegrated like burning paper. Cold metal emerged from the ground to encircle her wrists and ankles. Mikoto found herself chained to a cross, beneath a sky gone sharingan crimson. Madara had taken the bait.

Oh, god.

Mikoto bit down on her lip to keep a sob locked in her chest. This mission had been doomed from the start. He was going to rip out her mind, and then he was going to do his best to burn Konoha to the ground. Her sacrifice was meaningless. She had to get _out_. Driven by panic, she stilled her chakra flow, and then brought it back in a rush. The illusion didn't even flicker; it was as useless as she had been warned. The world was so real she could feel the grain of the wood catch on the fabric of her sleeves, smell the promise of lightning from the storm clouds roiling overhead.

Madara coalesced in front of her, from the hot winds blowing across the featureless plain. "This is the power of the Eternal Mangekyō sharingan," he said. From within his voluminous cloak he drew out a katana. "Everything here is under my control. Not only time, but space and matter as well. Anything I wish to do to you...I can, and I will." The steel glinted red under the clouds. He raised the tip of the blade to her jaw, a delicate caress. Its point traced the line of her cheekbone, and paused for a moment.

She screamed as it pierced her eye, and he _twisted_. He wrenched the blade free and struck a second time, blinding her completely. She struggled against the chains, bloodying her wrists in futile attempt at escape. "That's of no use," he replied with amusement.

Five seconds.

He worked the tip of the sword under the straps of her breastplate, and snapped them one by one until the front hung loose, exposing the fabric of her undershirt. He split it neatly down the center, from her navel to her collarbone. Then, he did the same to the skin beneath. Every stroke was that of a master artist, born of long, long practice. Her pride trickled away as the blood streamed down her body, into the thirsty dust. She begged for him to stop, screaming out empty promises.

One minute.

"You are what I knew would be born from an alliance with the Senju—so soft, so weak, so helpless," he said over her sobbing breaths. "The Tsukuyomi can be overcome. Did you know that? Blood calls to blood. A sharingan of the same lineage as my own is enough to free you of this pain." He placed the tip of his katana against the raw, exposed bone where her clavicles met. "Well. Perhaps not _you. _You can't even find purchase for your little kitten claws."

The steel cut through flesh and bone without resistance, exposing her beating heart. She should have been long dead from the damage her body sustained, but that sweet release had fled.

Three minutes.

He lowered his blade to inspect his handiwork. He cocked his head and sighed, as if he found it wanting. With a gesture, the ruin he had made of her torso knit itself back together, and the agony faded.

"You should have embraced your hatred, Mikoto-chan_. _It would have served the clan far better. As it is, you ruined the first Uchiha since myself who could have taken back the legacy of the Rikudō Sennin, and you were well on your way to ruining the second. But the Uchiha and the Senju are destined to do battle. There is no other truth."

"What...legacy," she choked out. The Rikudō Sennin had been dead a thousand years, if he even lived at all. There was nothing to take from a man made of myths and legends.

"One can learn many things, speaking with the bijū," he said. "You lack faith—he did walk this earth, once. He was real enough to father two sons. We Uchiha are descended from the eldest. The strongest. The rightful heir. The Senju are descended from the younger. The one who wormed his way into his father's favor, despite his weakness. He gave each of his sons a gift, you see. He gave us his power. And then he gave the Senju his _love_." He spat out the word disdainfully. "When the sage was on his deathbed, he named the younger son as his heir." Madara raised his blade again. "That was a mistake. The eldest knew it. He almost succeeded in killing his brother. I intend to finish the job for him."

"It was...no mistake," Mikoto whispered hoarsely.

He placed the tip of his katana against the soft skin beneath her jaw, and thrust it clear through the muscle and severed her tongue. "You don't know when to shut up, do you girl," he said, laughing as she gagged on the torrent of blood filling her mouth.

He attacked again and again, until time stopped and only pain and her weakening screams remained.

-ooo-

After hours...days...the torture ceased.

She opened her eyes, again whole and unmarred. Her tormentor was nowhere to be seen. The chains holding her in place uncurled, dropping her to the ground, her legs folding beneath her. Her uniform and the skin beneath were unblemished. Had Itachi somehow done it? Had they won? But if so, why was she still here?

"Mom?" a voice called out to her, high and childlike. She hadn't heard that voice in years. It should have been deeper, duller, sapped by years of suffering under his father's expectations of what a shinobi ought to be.

"Itachi?" she mouthed into the dust, too weak to rise. Light footsteps approached her prone body. He knelt beside her, and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. His fingers were gentle, chamois-soft and uncalloused from the years of punishing training. It had been a decade since...

She remembered now. Since Itachi had changed. When he used to take her hand without a thought. Laugh. Play. Taller than most, and skilled beyond his years, the other children were intimidated by him, but he made the effort to pull a few into his games anyway. He'd cared then. His speech had a more mature cadence, and he was surer on his feet than his playmates, but he'd wanted what any other child wanted—his parents' affection and friends to call his own.

There was enough strength left in her to turn her head, wasn't there?

Itachi smiled down at her, his round face resting on his knees.

Then the childlike smile split a little too wide, like the grin of a wolf before it lunged. His eyes went crimson, and from the sockets Madara's sharingan whirled into eternity. Steel cables erupted from the ground, encircling her limbs and torso. They drew him up, too, so Madara could look her in the eye from the body of her child. "No," he said mockingly, in Itachi's younger voice. The cables tightened like serpents encircling their prey, the bones in her arms splintering under the pressure. She screamed anew. Her vision blurred with tears of pain and helplessness. Was there no end to this? Could he keep her here forever?

Madara allowed the steel snakes burrowing hungrily into her chest to withdraw, a brief respite that made anticipation of the next wave all the more horrifying. Through bleary eyes, she looked up at false image of her son. She'd convinced him to take this path. Itachi's death was on her hands. The destruction of the whole village was on her hands. Konoha would be shattered. Perhaps not now, but soon enough. Madara would slaughter every mother's son and daughter within the walls, in his insane lust for vengeance. After today, he would never again be caught unaware, and he would not be stopped without enormous loss of life, if he could be stopped at all.

Her children needed her. They all did. She couldn't let it slip away.

Mikoto coughed against shattered ribs. Maybe she still had a chance. All she needed to do was give Itachi a few more precious seconds, and trust that it wouldn't be in vain. He was the best shinobi of his generation, the best born within Konoha's walls since Minato. He would make good use of her parting gift.

All this time, she had been shrinking from the illusory pain; convincing herself it wasn't real, trying futilely to break what was unbreakable out of pure instinct. What if that was the wrong path? Madara had said blood called to blood in the world of Tsukuyomi, offering the only hope of freeing oneself. She was Madara's direct descendant, and didn't have the strength to break the genjutsu, but brute force had never been what had won her past battles. The ability to flow like quicksilver around her enemies' defenses, to turn their own strength and overconfidence against them—that was what had won her the envy of her peers. He had probably used this jutsu a hundred times, or more, in his long life. Maybe it _was _unbreakable.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them again, looking out through the trefoil of her own Mangekyō sharingan.

Their eyes locked, and Madara...Madara hesitated. No one in history had ever had the audacity to turn his own technique on him—no one else could. The moment of doubt was so brief, even her well-trained sharingan almost missed it.

It meant he was afraid. It meant he wasn't invulnerable. It meant that she could _win_.

She poured her chakra into this world of the mind; probing every possible weakness of the cables Madara had drawn from the ground to restrain her. The crushing pressure lessened a fraction, and some of the shrieking pain in her bones began to fade as he was forced on the defensive, if ever so briefly. She pushed harder, bringing more of herself into the illusion and making it her own. The metal supporting Madara's borrowed form shuddered and snapped, and the thinner strands began to twine themselves around him.

The thing before her was not her son. She screamed again, not in agony but in defiance. She began tearing at the lie faster than he could repair it, and his form shifted nauseatingly. More steel vines erupted from the ground below him, twining around him just as fast as he could snap the ones she'd trapped him with moments before. Both of them were submerged in a nightmarish, writhing garden of steel cable.

She didn't have the strength to free herself, but she didn't need it.

If she couldn't leave, neither would Madara.

He may have been older and stronger, but she had one advantage. Madara was patient, seemingly immortal. He had nothing to fight for but old grudges, and he couldn't savor that vengeance if he was dead. He was used to biding his time, withdrawing if he must, and thus was unused to bringing his full power to bear.

That was not true for Mikoto. Everything she fought for would continue, even if her victory meant her death. With luck, Itachi, Sasuke and Naruto would live on, grow up, and have children of their own. Konoha would weather the Uchiha's betrayal like it had weathered so many other catastrophes, and rise again like the phoenix from the ashes of the shinobi who had given their lives to protect it. Through the tears, she smiled, and redoubled her efforts to bind the foe before her. Madara snarled at her, the first sound of distress she had heard from his throat. It may have been the blurriness of her vision, but it seemed as though the edges of the illusion were starting to fade into a dirty mist.

They remained locked in this battle of wills for what felt like hours but was merely seconds. She drew on her chakra stores without care for her own life, dipping into the reserves that he could not: the energy that sustained her body's cells, her organs and her muscles. Young shinobi were trained diligently to watch themselves for the symptoms of such overuse: extreme fatigue, dizziness, and confusion followed by loss of consciousness. If the depletion was severe enough, their organs would begin shutting down system by system, until finally their hearts grew too fatigued to beat. Very soon after that, the damage to the brain was irreversible, no matter how skilled the medic, and death was a certainty. The body guarded itself against such an extreme, robbing a shinobi of their wits long before most reached the point of no return. In this prison of the mind, such safeguards had been removed.

Mikoto couldn't win fight, but she didn't have to. She only had to hold on, tenacious as a crocodile, until...

Suddenly, Madara's body went rigid, as if he'd been struck. Their world rippled, a stone dropped into a pool of still water. "_You planned this, you bitch_!" he screamed.

Mikoto could barely hear his increasingly incoherent curses. The red sky melted away, and she was in the shrine once more, with solid wood beneath her feet. Her face was slick with blood, not her own, and the air smelled of charred flesh and an unnatural acrid fire. Everything was going black, beckoning her into oblivion. She felt a pair of arms catch her as her legs gave way, hold her tight against his chest.

It was done.


	18. Chapter 18

It was still dark. But it was a warm, pleasant, comforting darkness, a summer night under familiar stars, with your friends waiting just past the next rise. There was no regret, no fear, only a peace that lapped gently against Mikoto's mind like the waves of a sheltered harbor. She rose to her feet and looked down. The ash-smeared white breastplate was gone. Instead, she was wearing dark gray fatigues and her old flak jacket, the umber style with reinforced armor plates that Konoha hadn't manufactured in fifteen years. She shrugged, and resettled the gear belt on her hips, then started walking towards the warm glow and seated figure she could see between the whispering aspens.

There was so much she would finally be able to say. She wanted to tell her sensei that his son had grown into a man, a _good_ man, and that the crime of orphaning him had been forgiven. She wanted Obito to know how much time Kakashi spent at the memorial stone, dreaming about what should have been the beginning of a fast friendship. She'd be able to apologize to Fugaku and Shisui, until her tongue went dry and her lips cracked. And finally...

"Hey," Kushina said, looking over her shoulder. She was stretched out in front of the fire, warming her bare feet next to the stones lining the circle. Her hair, unbound and reaching well past her waist, sparkled as brightly as the shifting embers as it undulated in the breeze. Her outfit matched Mikoto's. It was what they'd worn on their last mission together, a few days before Mikoto had learned she was pregnant.

How could she possibly begin? What could she possibly say? Mikoto's mouth worked over an answer, until she finally settled on the most obvious. "Hey," she echoed, drawing closer.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Kushina said, wiggling her toes.

"Mmm," Mikoto answered, curling up next to her friend, her hands crossed over her knees. They sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the flickering of the fire. Kushina was being unusually quiet, as if waiting for Mikoto to speak. "I avenged you," she said finally.

"Oh," Kushina said vaguely. "Thanks."

"That's it? Just 'thanks'?"

Kushina shrugged. "Don't get me wrong—I totally appreciate what you did for Konoha. But that whole vengeance deal was more your thing than my thing. Making other people hurt as much as you were hurting never seemed to make you feel any better afterward. Just saying."

Mikoto lapsed into silence again. Kushina had a way of being...right about that kind of thing, even if the delivery wasn't particularly sophisticated. "Are you...angry with me? About Naruto?" she asked.

"Nope."

"You're not just saying that? After I abandoned him for six—"

"You saved his life," Kushina interrupted. "And helped him with his homework, made him wash up, packed his lunches, nursed him when he was sick, stuck like a million bandaids on his knees..." she stopped, flashing Mikoto one of her beaming smiles, "and found him a friend who'll take care of him as well as you took care of me."

Mikoto returned the smile, although it stopped below her eyes. "I missed you. I missed you so much," she said, wiping a few tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand.

Kushina inched nearer, until they were leaning together, almost shoulder to shoulder. Mikoto was afraid to touch her at first, afraid her fingers would encounter the insubstantial mist of a ghost's flesh, or that she'd be as cold as the day her eviscerated corpse was brought down from the hilltop. Kushina giggled at her reluctance, and knocked her head gently against Mikoto's temple. She was solid and warm, her hair tickling Mikoto's cheeks. "I missed you too," Kushina said finally. "Sakumo-sensei's not bad to have around, and he smiles now that he's back with his wife, but I think you were always his favorite."

"Where is he?" Mikoto asked.

"Further in," Kushina answered. "Probably drinking really expensive wine, and worrying about Kakashi-kun. You know how he is. The kid coughed once, and it was off to the hospital with him."

Kushina didn't seem inclined to take her wherever their old teacher was, at least not yet. "Where are we now, then?" Mikoto pressed.

"The borderlands. The fuzzy part, between what used to be and what's coming up. Once I get really bored I plan on coming back across to haunt people, especially the old perv. I name my kid after the hero of his book, and he doesn't even remember to show his ugly face on Naruto's birthday. Some godfather he is."

Mikoto wasn't sure if she was joking or not. With Kushina it could be hard to tell. "What's it...like? After everything's over?" she asked hesitantly.

"You get what you deserve," Kushina answered. "I made out pretty good."

"My parents? My brothers?" she asked.

"Proud as hell of you, but I think they're kicking themselves for making you marry that jerkwad. I kicked them, anyway. Lots. Especially Koichi. Even dead, he's still kind of a tool to everybody that doesn't have freaky Uchiha eyeballs."

She gently fended off the rest of Mikoto's questions, and once she realized she wasn't going to get anywhere she let the redhead babble on about a few mutual, deceased acquaintances. After a while, before Mikoto was ready, Kushina gently pushed her upright. She stood and stretched, arching her back with a contented yawn. "Time to go," she said, stepping out of the light and back into the trees. "I'm sort of playing hooky," she whispered conspiratorially, from behind her hand. "Better get back before anyone realizes I'm gone. Catch ya later."

Mikoto rose to follow, but her friend was already well into the trees. She left the circle of warm firelight, and took off at a run, but, no matter how she tried, she couldn't close the distance. The ground was uneven, and the undergrowth thick with night-blooming flowers. The spongy moss sucked at her steps, and the roots tangled around her ankles until she fell into them. "Kushina, wait!" she called, struggling up again. "Please wait, I can't—"

Kushina's answer seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, saturating the air along with the perfume of the flowers around her knees. "You can't come where I'm going."

"Why?" Mikoto cried, thrashing through the greenery.

Kushina laughed, teasing and full of real mirth. "For a genius, you can be, like, _really_ dense. Why do you think? You came pretty damn close, but _you_ _aren't dead_."

The forest faded as her voice did, the trees and the starry sky overhead evaporating into smoke. But the floral scent lingered, growing stronger and melding with a harsher, more chemical antiseptic smell. The scent pulled her back into her flesh, and the ache of long-unused muscles and unpleasant intrusions of medical tubing and seal-inscribed tape. It was a tremendous effort to force her lashes apart, and did very little, since all she could see was a pale ceiling and walls. Her other senses began to trickle back. She could hear the muffled hum of conversation, and footsteps on tile. Closer by, on her left side, were two harmonizing rhythms of breath, one deeper and slow, the second higher-pitched and quick. She was almost too weak to turn her head towards the sound.

When she did, she felt her gritty eyes fill with tears. She recognized those silhouettes in the starlight trickling around the curtains.

Itachi stirred, sitting up a little straighter on the padded bench next to the window. His hair was loose around his face, and he looked so, so young. His eyes widened as they met hers. He nudged the pile of blankets and ration bar wrappers next to him, which muttered crossly, and tried to nestle closer against his thigh. He pushed Sasuke up bodily, and rose to his feet.

"Hey," her youngest mumbled. "Why'd you—"

"Mother?" Itachi whispered. His voice was thick with dread.

Sasuke gasped, and nearly fell off the bench in his haste to untangle himself from the blankets. Before he could clamber up on her bed, Itachi threw a hand around his chest and pulled him off the guardrail. "Let me go!" Sasuke said, pushing against his restraining arm, hysterical. "She's awake. She's going to be fine. Let me_ go_!"

"Sasuke, stop," he ordered, folding both his arms around his distraught brother to hold him still. "You know what would happen even if she did wake up. I told you what the Tsukuyomi does."

"No..." he whimpered, still writhing in his brother's firm grip. "I don't believe you. You're lying. You're lying, you're lying, you're—"

"Would I _ever_ do that to you?" he asked softly, but fierce. After a pause, his anger spent, Sasuke sniffed and shook his head. "Then please be still, or you'll have to wait outside." Experimentally, he loosened his grip on the boy, who did not leap for the bed again.

Sasuke balled up a handful of Itachi's shirt in his fist, looking apprehensively at her out of the corner of his eye. Something in how they carried themselves was different than it had been. Itachi had always been so reluctant to let Sasuke near, to let _anyone _near. Yet here he stood, his arm resting protectively on his brother's narrow shoulders, pressing Sasuke's face close against his chest.

"Do you know where you are?" Itachi asked her.

"Konoha hospital," she mouthed with cracked lips.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Brief laughter, and a flash of red hair, bubbled up in her memory, and then it was gone. "Pain," she whispered instead. "The sky bled."

The memories of her dreams were putrid, an indistinct mass of something black and horrible. Instinct told her not to delve too deeply into them, not yet. She retraced her steps further back. She remembered her husband bleeding to death in her arms, and then that pain in her eyes...she had to stop, catch her breath, hold down the thoughts that were oozing around in her mind. She was coming too near the rotten thing, and it was groping blindly for her, trying to pull her into madness. "You needed more time," she continued, forcing her mind into a blank grayness. "So I turned it on him. I trapped him there. I needed to keep both of you safe."

Comprehension crashed over Itachi's face. "It was you. You gave me those four more seconds I needed to dispatch his kage bunshin." Sasuke turned more of his face to her, expectant but confused. "You have the Mangekyō sharingan," Itachi whispered.

"Yes," she said. "And...I'm here. I'm still me."

Itachi let Sasuke go. The boy threw himself on her, torn between laughter and tears. Itachi was more restrained, as always, but took her hand in his, and smiled like she hadn't ever had never seen him smile before.

He quickly pried his little brother loose, but not before he'd nearly squeezed the breath out of her in an enthusiastic hug. "Be more careful," he admonished. "She survived the Tsukuyomi, but her chakra was drained to almost fatal levels. She's still very sick."

Sasuke drew back guiltily. "Sorry," he said to her. "I...didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," she mouthed, and turned up the corners of her lips as high as they would go.

Itachi looked back to her. "I should find the night nurse, just a moment," he said, and shut the door behind him.

Sasuke arranged himself with great care at her shoulder, and sighed. "He didn't think you were going to be okay," he said. "He thinks he knows everything sometimes, and he _doesn't_."

"How long was I...?" she asked.

"Three weeks, about," he said, and replaced his head on the edge of her pillow. "A lot of people came to see you while you were...sleeping. Practically the whole clan! Yuji-ojisan was here almost every day. Yūgao-san and Haruka-san and Ishimaru-san came a few times, when they could, and so did Daishiro-sanonce they let him out of bed. They wouldn't let Naruto in the hospital at all at first, until Itachi went down to the reception desk and got him. They didn't argue about it after that—he did that thing where he's really polite, but still looks like he's going to kill you, if you don't agree with whatever he's saying. Oh...and even the Hokage came for a little bit! He looked sort of sad, but happy at the same time, and he told me I should be proud that you're my mother, and that I'm an Uchiha, no matter what anyone else says."

Her comprehension was still fuzzy at the edges, but one name in particular leapt out at her. "Daishiro's alive?" she whispered, still muddled from the long time asleep.

"Yup," he answered. "He was banged up pretty bad, especially his legs, but otherwise he said he was okay. I like him. He told off the fat nurse that kept trying to fuss over me—patting my head and bringing me candy and things, like I was a baby. She wouldn't leave me alone. Just because..." he began, and trailed off into a long, shuddering breath. "Because …because of what happened to Father. All the Elder's houses are empty now. Itachi told me Madara was the one who…who made all of it happen, but now that he's dead, I don't—" He grit his teeth, trying to hold back the sobs.

"_A shinobi must never show tears,_" she quoted. "Number...twenty-something, right?"

"Twenty-five," Sasuke supplied, trying not to sniffle. "Konohagakure Code of Shinobi Conduct."

Mikoto raised the hand that was free of IVs and let it fall against her shoulder, so she could stroke his hair. Such a simple motion took more out of her than she'd expected. "I've broken that rule more times than I can remember," she whispered. "We all have."

Sasuke's small fists clenched. He whimpered softly, and then all of the grief and anger came rushing out in a noisy, messy flood that left her pillow sopping wet in minutes. She was too weak to offer much comfort beyond her fingers against his cheek, but it seemed to be enough.

The two people Mikoto felt waiting at the door didn't open it until the sobbing abated, and then the room was flooded with harsh fluorescent light, as Itachi pushed open the door with the nurse at his side. She gently shooed Sasuke away as she began poking and prodding Mikoto, and asking simple questions about how she felt and the last thing she remembered. Her answers were mostly monosyllabic, but well received, and she nodded in satisfaction before giving Mikoto a little water and leaving again. She could already feel herself slipping under again.

It was several days before Mikoto could keep herself awake for more than a few hours at a stretch. The Yamanaka medics were in constant attendance, doing their best to extract the mental shrapnel and patch over the wounds it left behind, but still her sleep was plagued with vile dreams under a blood-red sky. She frequently awoke gasping painfully for air, as if all of her ribs had been broken. It was unimaginably worse when she was alone.

So it was a good thing she was rarely alone.

"Hey, scoot over!" Naruto said, give Sasuke a little shove. This morning, he'd claimed the extra pillows from the unused second bed, and arranged a cozy nest for himself at Mikoto's feet. "I just got up to get her some tea, that doesn't mean you can take my spot!"

"Go sit by the window, Mom can't see the TV around your big head anyway," Sasuke said, from where he was sprawled on his stomach, an armful of pillow clutched beneath his chin. "You got to sit next to her for hours yesterday."

"_My_ big head? Oh bite me you—"

There was a brief rap on the door. "You can come in," Mikoto said, over the mingled bickering and the theme tune to the soap opera that was dribbling out of the elderly hospital television.

Her sister-in-law leaned into the room, bracing her hand against the door handle. "I was about to go on my lunch break, and I thought the boys might be hungry. And you have a visitor."

"Who?" Mikoto asked.

"Yūhi Daishiro-san."

The brief smile was all the answer Kaname needed.

"Sasuke-kun, Naruto-kun," she said, gently prodding both boys off the bed and taking each by the hand. "It's curry bun day at the cafeteria. Got to hurry, or they'll run out!"

"I'm not that hungry, can't I—ahhhh, slow down, Auntie!" Sasuke yelped. His indignant cries where buried under the hospital clamor as the woman pulled him briskly down the hall. Kaname's timing was, as usual, excellent.

Mikoto pushed herself up higher on the pillows. Even that tiny bit of strain made the muscles of her arms ache, but at least she'd gained enough strength to make use of them. Daishiro pushed the door fully open to let himself in. The cuts on his face had faded to thin, brown lines, the bruises barely ghosts. "Won't ask how you're feeling, because I personally am sick to death of that question," he said, rolling his chair up next to her bed and popping the brake. "Casts came off yesterday. Unscratchable itches are plain hell."

The smile melted off her lips. Mikoto could only stare, feeling ill. "Nobody told me," she whispered.

"Told you what?"

"That you'd been _paralyzed_."

He glanced out the window, leaning against the backrest. "I'm not. Not completely. Kakashi was true to his word—he got me the best, short of Tsunade-sama."

"What's the prognosis?" Mikoto asked.

"Two to four months until I'm out of the chair, with a cane and braces. She wouldn't promise any more than that, but said hoping wouldn't be amiss either."

"I'm so sorry," she murmured.

"Don't be," he said immediately, although to her experienced ear the reassurance was forced. He must have been frightened of what the future held—in his position, who wouldn't be?—but a shinobi learned to adapt. They were masters at it.

"Do you know the average life expectancy for an active ANBU agent?" he continued. "Three years, five months, twenty-nine days. My number came up, but somehow I'm still here. And I can still do this, can't I?" He slid his hand across the sheets to take her own; it was soft, well-manicured, but still carried old scars and the lingering stiffness of fingers broken twenty years ago. "I may not be able to take missions anymore, and I'll have to move to a ground-floor apartment, but the clan will take care of me until I can make my own living. Inscribing exploding tags and storage scrolls might be tedious, but I've got the chakra reserves, and it pays well. Thought about working here, even, as a counselor. Worry about yourself before you worry about me. I can make it on my own...for as long as I have to."

The question hung unspoken in the air. He was giving her the opportunity to bat it aside, if she wasn't ready to give him an answer. She was deeply grateful; her grief over her husband's death was too close to even think about picking up where they'd left off all those years ago. She was sure she still loved Daishiro, that much she knew. And if she could trust anyone to raise another man's son with all the love he would have given his own, it would be him. Everything else was too complicated; the 'what-ifs' made her head spin into a tangle of guilt and misery and betrayal.

But Daishiro was a patient man. It was something she'd always liked about him. He treated her like a friend first, and an equal, and a friend was what she wanted now. "You should try," she said. "Getting job at the hospital, I mean. You'd be good at it...you did so much for Kakashi, after sensei died. More than I ever did."

Daishiro shook his head slightly, lips upturned and eyes shut. "He was such a brat when he was younger. Do you remember what he did the first time he beat me in the sparring ring?"

Mikoto shook her head innocently no, although in truth she had a fairly good recollection. If Daishiro wanted to reminiscence, _she_ wasn't going to stop him.

"He didn't even come up to my vest pockets, and he tried to make me call him 'sir' for a week, cocky little bastard," he continued. "And then managed to convince Pakkun to leave me a little present outside my door when I wouldn't. I mean...what self-respecting ninken _does_ that on somebody's back porch?"

She started to laugh despite herself, a spring bubbling unbidden from dry ground. "He was only a puppy, remember? He was so precious you couldn't stay angry with him."

"Especially after Kakashi taught him how to say 'sorry' and do that…thing with his eyebrows," Daishiro said. "He could've gotten away with killing a man, thanks to that look."

They were interrupted by a nurse with a meal tray, and a young chūnin with black hair and crimson lips (to match her crimson eyes) that eventually coaxed Daishiro back into his own room. Over the next week, he led Mikoto back on the well-worn paths of memory to their genin days, when her team was hale and whole, and the worst she had to worry about was Kushina painting rude things on her face while she slept. When the nurses finally ordered him off to his own bed, or to yet another grueling physical therapy session, it was Itachi that appeared as if by magic to continue the vigil. He had been excused from active duty to look after Sasuke, and often served as her loyal gatekeeper, keeping the well-wishers and their bouquets of flowers and packages of sweets piled up outside of the curtain. The lingering weakness and dark dreams made even conversation taxing.

-ooo-

A crack of thunder tore her from the grip of the latest nightmare. She jerked awake with the taste of blood still on her tongue, which did not dissipate, even after she opened her eyes. A moan of horror leaked around the hand she'd pressed against her lips. Every night held the fear, buried at the back of her mind, that _this _time the morning would never come.

Itachi pushed himself up from the other cot, where he'd been catching a few hours sleep. He pried her hands away from her mouth. "You must have bitten your lip while you slept," he said, and got up to fetch a few tissues for her, to blot her bleeding lip and the moisture leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

Perfectly logical. Nothing to worry about. The pressure in the air was a simple spring rainstorm. She dropped the used tissues into the waste basket; the tiny cut was already closing.

"Is there...anything else I can do for you?" he asked.

"I don't know," she snapped. "Let me know how I can sleep through the night for once?"

"I'm not very good at this. I'm sorry," he said, to the tile. "I tried to recall what you would do for me, but that seems rather foolish, in hindsight. Reassurances that there were no monsters outside my windows only worked until I had grown up enough to see them with my own eyes."

It was almost unbearably strange, feeling their positions reversed. It was true...she still had vivid memories of soothing away his nightmares when he was very small, when the war still raged about Konoha and violent death was bared to even the youngest eyes. As a child he hardly ever cried, and squirmed away from displays of motherly affection like a boy twice his age. It was only in the small hours of the night he submitted to them, grasping at her nightgown as she dried the tears he refused to shed while he was fully awake. "You still remember that?" she asked, settling back into the pillows. "You never let me, once you were accepted into the Academy. I..." she kicked the blankets straight, blew out a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, I'm…I'm just so tired. You can sit, if you want."

He took her invitation, hunched over at the edge of the bed.

"I never really had the courage to ask, but what changed? Did your father...?" she asked.

"No," Itachi said quickly. "Please don't blame him for that."

"Itachi...what _happened_ to you?"

"It wasn't anyone's fault. Or it was everyone's. I don't know." He stopped to run his tongue over dry lips. "It was after one of Iwa's assaults on the walls. I remember being alone in the house; after Obito was deployed, I suppose there must not have been anyone left to watch me. You were probably working the hospital tents; father was on fire crew, or burying the dead. I was lonely. I went looking for you."

No one would have minded one small boy who kept out from underfoot; there was fire to douse, the wounded to tend, rubble to clear. He would have slipped past Konoha's battered gates and onto the cold battlefield without a challenge.

"It was night; everything had changed," he said. "The path and the trees I knew were gone; the ground had become a maze. I couldn't find the wall. There were bodies all around me, and I still remember every face—every single one. I remember _everything_." He paused, glancing at her. "Father found me, eventually, carried me home."

"You awakened your sharingan," she whispered, her jaw slack. Every detail of the butchery had been burned into his young mind, forever, and he would never be free of it. "Why didn't you tell—"

"I didn't have the words. And even later...what comfort could you possibly have given me? Once I knew all the nightmares were real? I made a decision, instead. No other child should have to see what I saw—no matter what the price."

Some children would have gone mad. Some would have become the terrible thing that had so scarred them in the first place. Not Itachi. Mikoto had always known he was strong—but she had never known how strong. That little boy, barely more than a baby, had decided he would do anything, become anything, to keep this from ever happening again. In a village that won its livelihood from making war, he decided to devote his life to preserving peace. She'd come to understand, finally, after thirteen years.


	19. Chapter 19

Half the homes in the Uchiha district now stood empty, their former occupants either executed or dead by their own hands when they realized what an utter catastrophe the coup had become. Of the original one-hundred and three adult members of the clan, forty-nine took and passed the rigorous Torture & Interrogation Force questioning to ensure their continued loyalty to Konoha. The leaders of the loyalist faction were hailed as heroes by the Hokage and his council (including, grudgingly, Shimura Danzō), and even those that had been put to death were buried with fitting memorials instead of unmarked graves. The Hokage praised their years of steadfast service, and made clear he believed they were as much victims of Madara's scheming as the dead the Kyūbi had left years before.

Not everyone believed him, but some did. Enough that the Uchiha were allowed to keep their status as one of the great clans...and allowed to elect a clan head.

Mikoto had finally been released from the hospital a few days before; her body, if not her spirit, almost fully healed, and both she and Itachi were standing patiently in line to cast their ballots. The remaining members of the clan hadn't been idle during Mikoto's convalescence. Seven candidates, so far, had put themselves forward for the position, and received the approval of the Hokage to run for office, three of which had received enough support to officially make the ballot. The race was unusually amicable for a contest between Uchiha, the mud-slinging that usually accompanied such an exercise kept to a minimum. Mikoto was sure Itachi had a hand in this. His reputation as a genius, already glowing from his early promotions, now shone so brightly for killing Madara that his clansmen...and the entire village...were practically blinded. Several individuals had proposed calling the election off entirely, and appointing him their leader. Itachi politely rebuffed their efforts on his behalf, repeatedly citing the village law requiring a clan head to be at least twenty-one years old. It was true the Hokage could overrule this restriction if he wished, but Itachi didn't want the clan falling back into an oligarchy any more than Mikoto did.

The election of the new clan head was being held in the Naka Shrine, the doors thrown open to accommodate the line snaking out the door. The event had an almost festival air to it. Konoha was in the full bloom of spring, warm and bursting with flowers from every garden plot and window box. A few enterprising kids had set up a refreshment stand in the shade of a maple outside the shrine, and were doing brisk business in snacks and lemonade.

Nevertheless, Mikoto couldn't help but wince slightly as she passed the threshold. With the shutters open, and filled with people, there ought to have been nothing threatening about it. But, beneath the smell of incense and cedar wood, she could still detect that charred reek that had filled her nose the last time she'd stood in this room. She had learned later it was Itachi's work, the unquenchable black fire of Amaterasu that had been mentioned in awestruck tones in the historical texts. Madara had made the mistake of teaching him its secrets in Kiri, and he had turned the kinjutsu on his teacher just as she had done with the Tsukuyomi. It was the perfect method of assassination; there was no defense against it. It would burn anything and keep burning as long as there was a will behind it—through flesh, wood, rock, steel. Even if Madara had somehow survived having his head severed by Itachi's katana, the Amaterasu was intended to finish the job, and the jutsu reduced him to nothing but a pile of greasy ash.

There was a new dark patch on the floor no one else seemed to have noticed. Mikoto swallowed thickly and stepped around it, suddenly lightheaded. If she closed her eyes she could almost see that blood-red sky.

"Are you not feeling well?" Itachi whispered over her shoulder.

"I'm fine," she answered out of the corner of her mouth, although she wanted nothing more than to leave. There was a photographer snapping pictures of the historic event, and he would need at least _one_ of the former clan head's wife and heir casting their ballots. She could stand it long enough to smile for him and get out.

Every eye in the room followed Mikoto as she took her ballot from one of the chūnin the Hokage had sent to facilitate the event to one of the private alcoves. It listed the three candidates, plus a line for write-ins. She picked up the stub of pencil and ticked the box next to Uchiha Sayori's name with two brisk strokes. Pausing briefly to smile at the photographer, she then folded up the slip of paper, and placed it in the locked metal canister in the corner. The results would be tallied later that evening, and announced in the assembly at the small public park tucked against the great walls. Still smiling, she walked sedately from the ballot box and out of the tall doors.

She only just made it around the corner before the feeling of metal chains sliding around her ankles fouled her balance and she pitched into the dirt, shaking. She could barely close her eyes, even to blink, or she would see it again, live it again. She was alone and it...

Itachi slipped behind the shrubs ringing the building and knelt beside her. "You're all right," he said, placing one hand on her shoulder and bracing the other against her forehead. He stayed close as he let her ride out the storm of unwelcome memories; there wasn't anything else he could do. "You won. You're all right."

His hands were always cold, and eventually the cool touch cut through the fever dream that was creeping across her eyelids. When the phantoms finally disappeared, she sagged against him, drained and dizzy. The aftershocks struck less frequently now, at least, and not without warning.

Mikoto sat curled in the grass until the shuddering in her limbs lessened, and her breathing evened. She flexed her fingers and rubbed at her wrists, reassuring herself they were unbound. The sky was a beautiful blue. Her clan was alive, laughing and drinking lemonade in the courtyard of the shrine at her back. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "Did anyone see?"

"So what if they did?" he replied. "There isn't any shame to being injured protecting another. You're still healing, and more of the clan understands that than you might think." He rose to a crouch, and gently pulled her up with him. "You should get some rest before the Hokage announces the results. Let me take you home."

"I raised such a polite son," she said, with half a grin. "Don't you mean 'take your own damn advice and let someone else help you for a change'?"

He returned the smile. "I was being tactful, but essentially…yes."

-ooo-

After a long nap, she awoke and dressed to find Naruto already downstairs, whining stridently about having to wear something besides a t-shirt and dirty shorts. He didn't own anything even remotely appropriate for the ceremony, but Itachi had found a box of Sasuke' just-too-small old clothes somewhere she'd been putting off donating to the orphanage. They were overflowing out of the tub and on to the floor. Naruto was half-dressed in the hakama and kimono but was staunchly ignoring the haori tucked over Itachi's arm, as well as his displeased gaze, a feat of bravery unequaled by many grown men. Itachi was already in his black dress uniform, which had become slightly less than perfectly pressed since he put it on.

She wasn't planning to crush that dauntless spirit, but if the boy was going to be living under her roof there was going to be _some_ discipline. He didn't seem to get any from anyone else, and in the perverse way of small boys was probably craving it.

"Naruto," she said sharply. "We can't be late. Either you put that on right now, and come with us to the ceremony, or you go back to your apartment and sit there alone all night."

"But it's _itchy_!"

"If you can't deal with itchy, you're welcome to leave. There are some leftovers in the refrigerator you can take for dinner. We were going to pick up some takeout afterward. Teuchi-san will probably be wondering what happened to you."

His eyes went wide. "You wouldn't," he said, horrified. Going out to Ichiraku without him was the worst punishment she could possibly devise—it was a dirty trick, but it worked every time. She didn't really want any, but the cost of a few bowls of ramen was a small price to pay to get him properly dressed in the next five minutes. When he realized she was serious, he locked his face into a pout, and stuck out his arms to let Itachi pull the jacket on him.

"I'll have to remember that one," Itachi whispered to her, before moving to put on his shoes. "I could probably pin him with killing intent all day, and he wouldn't even notice."

Mikoto knelt in front of Naruto, evening out the hem so the Uchiha fan hung straight. "Thank you. It's really not that bad. Sasuke doesn't seem to mind his, you know."

The boy in question looked up, from where he was lounging against the wall near the front door, and stuck out his tongue. Naruto growled, stomped up to him, and immediately went for his throat. Sasuke ducked the lunge easily. Naruto slammed his wrist into the wall, cursed, and then fell on his rear when Sasuke kicked him in the back of the knee.

"_ENOUGH!_" Mikoto bellowed, loud enough to make even Itachi wince. She lifted Naruto to his feet and placed him behind her, then took Sasuke by both shoulders and shoved him in front of his older brother. "You can beat each other bloody on the training field for all I care, but while we are at the assembly you will behave yourselves. If one of you lays even a finger on the other, _both_ of you are going to get it."

"Uh, what's 'it'?" Naruto asked with trepidation.

"You are speaking to one of the foremost genjutsu masters of Konohagakure," Itachi commented over his shoulder. "I would guess you don't want to find out."

Sasuke and Naruto exchanged glances.

"Have I made myself clear?" Mikoto asked sternly.

"Yes, ma'am," Sasuke murmured.

"Yeah. Really, perfectly clear," Naruto said, and cleared his throat. "Ma'am."

"Good," she said cheerfully, picking up her purse. "Let get going, then."

Sasuke smoothed down his clothes and stepped over the door frame.

"Your mom is scary when she'd mad," Naruto mouthed at him, none too subtly.

"No kidding," he mouthed back.

They arrived at their destination without further incident. The genin teams had been hard at work. The grass was freshly mown, and the trees hung with red and white ribbon, and lanterns painted with the Uchiha fan. Most of the clan had already arrived, and were sitting on mats and blankets thrown over the grass and conversing in low, excited voices.

Naruto and Sasuke settled themselves next to Yuji and his wife in the first row, before the low stage that had been erected for the Hokage's announcement. She and Itachi had positions of honor on the platform itself. Naruto fidgeted incessantly, but she needed him seated there beside Sasuke so the whole clan could see his blond hair…and the fan crest beneath it. He would legally become an Uchiha very soon, and they, as well as the rest of the village, needed that point driven home. He was no longer an outsider. He was _family_. People would still hate him, both within the clan and without. But at least they'd have keep that hatred behind their teeth, or be forced to deal with herself or Itachi. She didn't think anyone in the village had the guts to openly challenge either of them, after all that had happened.

She could make them outwardly behave themselves, but truly changing the villagers' hearts was outside the realm of her influence. Naruto would have to tackle that on his own, as he grew older. He'd managed to win her over, and more than a few of the other Uchiha. After that challenge the rest of the village should be a piece of cake.

The three candidates for Clan Head ascended the opposite side of the platform and knelt in their places, the Hokage waiting in the grass. A handful of ANBU followed him at a discreet distance, and arranged themselves around the stage. The one in the dog mask positioned himself nearest her. He gave no easily discernable indication that they were acquainted, but she could have sworn she saw him wink at her through the eye holes of his mask when she glanced in his direction. The tiger took up a place slightly behind him. He didn't acknowledge her either, but made a show of linking his hands at the small of his back with only a bit of lingering stiffness in his arm.

Once the security sweep had been completed, the Hokage ascended the steps, his hands clasped behind him. He had a small, ornate envelope tucked between his fingers. A hush fell over the crowd.

"I would like to thank every one of you for assembling here tonight, and express my condolences for the events that made this assembly necessary. Uchiha Madara's thirst for vengeance has done great harm to Konoha, and none have suffered more at his hands than his clansmen. And yet..." he paused, flashing a bittersweet smile.

"And yet you have displayed the bravery and wisdom needed to bridge the chasm of hatred between the Uchiha and the Senju, as your ancestors did before you. Madara's own kinjutsu were turned on him, because he underestimated the strength of your love for Konoha. It will take time to heal from the injuries he has done you, and the grief that he has caused, but I have no doubt you will do it."

"Now, without further delay, we shall see who you have chosen to lead you forward." He slipped his finger under the flap of the envelope and drew out the card within. "The new Head will be," he said, and stopped, blinking at whatever was written on the small card. The crowd began to murmur at the delay. "The new Head will be Uchiha Mikoto-san. My congratulations. Do you accept the position?"

Everyone ceased speaking and turned to stare at her. She felt suddenly dizzy. How was this _possible? _She'd been in bed while the others were campaigning. Itachi didn't look surprised, but that wasn't saying much. Her brother was beaming like a moron, and gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. They'd probably been planning this from the day she woke up. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the effort. She would be up to it eventually, but she didn't have the energy to take all of this on herself!

"Say 'yes', girl," Sayori muttered out of the corner of her mouth as the expectant silence drew out too long. "The Council will fill in the gaps until you're healed up. We decided. Go on now, I voted for you."

Mikoto cleared her throat, and rose to her feet. She bowed to the Hokage, hands crossed over her thighs. "I—I accept," she said, in a voice that carried to the ring of trees.

Applause, and a few cheers, from the younger and more excitable members of the clan erupted from the clearing—the cool Uchiha reserve seemed to have taken a holiday. She looked out into the crowd. They were waiting for something. Obviously, she hadn't prepared a speech, but she was nothing if not skilled at improvising. She turned to face them, and bowed again, long and low. The duty of the Clan Head was to serve the interests of their family, not the reverse.

After the pause to collect her thoughts, she straightened and began to speak. "Thank you, for placing your future in my hands. I don't have the strength to hold it by myself, not yet, but I am healing, and soon I think I will. I know we have hard times ahead of us, and hard times behind. There are so many faces we'll never see again. We've lost the trust of many of the other clans. But the Uchiha are nothing if not strong. Our fire isn't so easily extinguished. What we have _gained_ has been worth that price. The Uchiha are now free, freer than we have ever been."

"Madara told me something, the night…" she swallowed hard, "the night I went to face him. He said the Uchiha and the Senju are descended from the two sons of the Rikudō Sennin—the Uchiha from the elder, and the Senju from the younger. The first son received his father's might, and believed that strength was the key to peace. The second son received his father's benevolent will, and believed love was the key to peace. Before the great sage died, he chose his younger son as his successor. Overcome by jealously and bitterness, the older son attacked his brother. It was Madara's belief that these two brothers, and their children, and their children's children, were destined to fight each other for all time, until the older son reclaimed the legacy he believed to be his. I don't know if this is anything more than a myth, but if it _is_ true, I took something very different away from this knowledge. The Uchiha and the Senju are family. No one has a greater capacity for forgiveness than family. And although brothers may quarrel," she paused to glance from Itachi to Sasuke, which won a few chuckles from the crowd, "that does not mean they no longer love each other."

"As Head of the Uchiha clan I will do my best guide and protect you as if you were my own children, and win back the trust of Konoha that has been so harshly tested. This is not something I can do alone. It is up to every one of you to earn that forgiveness, by serving the ideals of the Rikudō Sennin as faithfully as I will."

"I will tell you now...I don't believe in destiny. I believe people can change. People can _choose_. And I have faith you'll choose well."

The applause began slowly, scattered across the clearing. One by one her clansmen rose to their feet. Like a deep ocean wave it quickly picked up intensity until the acclaim was thundering in her ears. She bowed again, taking it in, and when she rose the Hokage gestured for her to descend the stairs.

He caught her lightly by the arm as she walked by. "There are are some papers Itachi will have to sign to formally relinquish his position as heir. Why don't both of you come by my office tomorrow morning, and we'll get it out of the way in time to get you sworn in before the assembled Jōnin Council."

"Of course, Hokage-sama_,_" she answered.

"Nice speech, by the way," he added with a grin.

He relinquished her to the swarm of congratulations, and quietly withdrew with his ANBU guard. Yuji pushed Sasuke and Naruto to the front, and she swept Sasuke off his feet in a triumphant hug as the flashbulbs snapped around them. "You're going to do a great job," he said in her ear. "I know it." He was too big for her to hold for long, so she set him down to start shaking hands. Someone produced a bottle of imported champagne, and opened it with a triumphant pop. Anzu used the excuse of the celebratory air to elbow her way to the front of the clump and hug Itachi, who looked more bemused than offended at the brazen violation of his personal space. _Well_ now.

-ooo-

The next morning, once Sasuke and Naruto were safely on their way to school, she made her way to the Hokage's tower to deal with the inevitable mound of paperwork involved in a transition of power. She'd donned her old gear and flak jacket to face the Jōnin Council. Clan heads didn't generally take combat missions except in times of conflict, but none of her other outfits communicated the right...tone. Even with the boost her confrontation with Madara had given her, she would have to fight for every scrap of recognition she got—it would be like winning her promotion to jōnin all over again. The village let women have their power in the school and the hospital, but the council chamber was another question entirely.

She found Itachi in the staff lounge, deep in a conversation with Kakashi that her appearance had interrupted. Two entirely full, and entirely cold, cups of tea were sitting on the table in front of them.

Kakashi rose from the battered couch. "I'd better be getting to the mission office, but…um…you know where to find me, if you ever need…you know. I'll make the time."

"Thank you," Itachi said, still looking with blank eyes towards a stain on the carpeting.

Kakashi placed his hand briefly on Itachi's shoulder, giving it an awkward and self-conscious squeeze, before dumping out their untouched tea and slouching out the door. Mikoto felt her lip curl in half a smile. If any of his peers could understand the sorrow that her son now carried, it might just be the last of the Hatake.

"The Hokage's last appointment is running over. I think we have a few minutes," she said, once Kakashi had gone.

He shook his head, shedding the aching guilt and grief like drops of water from a leaf. "I'm all right. We shouldn't keep him waiting."

When they arrived at the double doors, the Hokage beckoned them towards his desk. "I didn't mention yesterday how good it is to see you up and about, Mikoto-san—the reports we had in the archives concerning recovery from the Tsukuyomi were not encouraging. The other three candidates for Clan Head have made it clear they are more than willing to cooperate with you as your new Council of Elders. Delegate where you feel it's appropriate until you're fully recuperated, whoever however long it takes."

"They've told me as much, and I'm sure I will, given time," she said with a slight bow. "I sleep a little better every day."

"Ah, the resiliency of youth."

"Begging your pardon, but I'm not exactly..."

"Don't argue with your kage," he said, with mock sharpness and a grandfatherly twinkle in his eye. She knew he probably did that to everyone under the age of forty, but it still felt nice.

"Sorry, sir."

One of his chūnin aides, a young woman with square glasses and a rumpled look to her dark outfit, slipped into the room and shrugged forward the pile of papers clutched in her arms. "I found the forms, Hokage-sama_," _she said in a mousy voice. "The top ones are abdication, the bottom ones are clan adoption."

"I don't remember them being so long," the Hokage said, pursing his brows slightly and eyeing the substantial collection of documents she was holding to her chest.

She juggled the papers around a little. "Oh, no, most of the bottom is mine. Um...just a second." Unsuccessfully, she tried to hold up the stack with one hand while flipping through the leaves with the other, nearly dumping them all on Itachi's sandals. Very tactfully, he guided the pile to the desktop with his hand before anything bureaucratically disastrous occurred. The girl turned brilliant red and stammered out a 'thank you', then thrust the appropriate document at him like she was presenting a love poem. "Sign and date wherever I've marked a red 'X', please," she squeaked. "The other two lines are for your witnesses, leave those." She clicked the nib out on her pen and presented that to him too. "You can fill them out at my desk if you like; it's just around the corner." As an afterthought, she sorted out the adoption papers and placed them in front of Mikoto. "You can return those when you're done, no rush."

"...thank you," Itachi said politely, and with nowhere else to read through it save them save the floor, followed her out with a resigned sigh. That pen was probably going to be enshrined somewhere in the secretarial pool.

"That poor young man is going to have to beat them off with a stick," the Hokage commented wistfully, after the door shut behind them. "Never a problem I had, unfortunately."

She knew how to play _this _game, although this was the first time her opponent was a kage. "I've seen pictures of your swearing-in as the Sandaime," she replied, smiling coquettishly. "I thought you were quite dashing. It hasn't been that long since those days, has it?"

The Hokage looked at her for a moment, and then burst out laughing. "Oh, you are _good_. I'm more than old enough to be your father, and I almost believed you meant it. The Jōnin Council won't know what hit them."

"Speaking of..." Mikoto began archly. "You didn't seem terribly surprised at the outcome of the election. I'm starting to think the only one on that stage who was was _me. _You were talking to Itachi, weren't ? From the day I woke up."

"He's an ANBU captain now," he said mildly. "I talk to him frequently. And that's the lovely thing about democratic elections. They're exciting. Now and then the dark horse candidate sweeps the race."

"My name wasn't even on the ballot!" she said. "Is that even legal?"

"Write-ins are perfectly legal. That's why the line is there. And if you had been given the opportunity, would you have offered yourself as a candidate?" he asked. "You seem to be eminently qualified."

"Well...the Uchiha have never had a female clan head," she explained. "In fact, I can't think of any clan besides the Inuzuka that ever have, and that's only because none of Tsume's brothers survived the Kyūbi's attack. The other Inuzuka are too terrified of her to suggest she quit."

"That is true," the Hokage conceded. "But I personally have never been opposed to the idea of a female clan head, or a female Hokage for that matter, and at the end of the day that is what counts."

There was a knock on the open door, and through the gap Mikoto could see Itachi and his sheaf of papers, the aide hovering at his shoulder. "Ah, thank you," the Hokage said. "Bring those to me, if you would." He flipped to the last page, and stamped his signature next to Itachi's. The aide placed it in a folder to squirrel away and left with an enormous grin on her face. Mikoto thought she saw her kiss the pen on the way out.

"Will that be all, sir?" Itachi asked, once the woman trotted away.

"No, actually. There is one more matter I'd like to discuss with you, Itachi_,_" the Hokage said. He pushed his chair back, looking contemplative. "He is far too deceased to appreciate the irony, but I believe Madara will soon have succeeded in his original goal."

"Sandaime-sama?" Itachi asked, puzzled.

"After Minato's death, I never formally chose a successor. One of my remaining loyal students would be the obvious choice, but although they are powerful neither of them has the temperament of a kage. Jiraiya still does his part for Konoha, but he loves wandering too much, and Tsunade..." he sighed. "Kato Dan's death hit her hard, and twenty years later she still hasn't put it behind her. She hasn't set foot inside the village in a decade. If I were a less charitable sort I would have had her declared a rogue ninja years ago."

"I admit I haven't been nearly as proactive in this as some have wished, sentimental old fool that I am. No one I found could possibly have filled the Yondaime's shoes, so here I sit, twiddling my thumbs and hoping the right shinobi for the job will simply appear in front of my desk, and save me the trouble of looking for him." The Hokage steepled his fingers under his chin and fixed Itachi with a penetrating stare.

Itachi's eyebrows had been inching steadily upward as the Hokage spoke. "You want me...to become the Godaime?" he said, slowly.

"You are a powerful, intelligent, driven, politically savvy...and deeply compassionate young man. I can think of no one better. And that was the reason Madara challenged Senju Hashirama, you know. He believed a sharingan should be looking out from under this hat. As disgusting as I find it to agree with him on anything, at this point in time, he's correct."

Mikoto put a hand on her hip and glanced at her son. "In my first semi-official act as Head of the Uchiha clan, I'd like to heartily endorse that nomination."

"Traditionally only the student or student's student of a kage will take up the position, but, considering how thoroughly the Uchiha seem to be thrashing tradition today, I don't think this will be much of an issue. If you need some time to think, do take it. This is not a decision to be made lightly."

Itachi was quiet for a few moments, and then let out a long, slow breath. "Thank you. Thank you, but I can't. I've made so many mistakes, I wouldn't—"

"We all make mistakes. Terrible mistakes. I know I have," the Hokage answered, sobering. "Lives have ended because of the decisions you've made, both of bitter enemies…and of dear friends. If you accept this duty, this will not stop until the day you die. I have asked you to take it up because I believe, out of everyone in Konoha, that _you_ have the strength to accept the consequences of these mistakes. You have the wisdom and the humility to learn from them."

He said nothing for a long time, his eyes on the Hokage. "Then I accept," he said finally.

"Excellent. And don't look so twitchy. I think I have a good decade left in me to show you the ropes."

-ooo-

The first real meeting of Konoha's clan heads was fully as obnoxious as Mikoto expected it to be. Half of them didn't fully trust her, and the other half assumed she would never be able to fill a man's shoes. The first one she'd have to work on herself, but Inuzuka Tsume swooped in to rescue her from the second. The phrase 'bigger balls than any man in ANBU' was tossed around several times, much to the annoyance of several former members, and the chagrin of Mikoto herself. Although Tsume's language was coarse, her point was still valid. She could say with complete certainty none of the men in that room had undertaken any mission as critical or as dangerous as the one she had completed. They could insult her 'lack of experience' all they liked, but if they attacked her courage they only made themselves look like fools.

Mikoto hefted her briefcase, and turned down the alley that led to the back of the Clan Head's mansion. There was a handcart and a small stack of cardboard boxes blocking the path to the back door, as well as a garden's worth of potted plants in old plastic ramen containers. There was also a great deal of banging and scraping coming from the open window of the guest bedroom.

"Oh, Mikoto-sensei," Uzuki Yūgao called, from behind her. "You're just in time. It looks like they're down to the last of it." She was carrying a large paper bag in the crook of each arm, from which emanated an aroma that made Mikoto's mouth water.

"This is all Naruto's?" Mikoto asked, as she fell into step with her student.

"Mm. Itachi-sempai needed another few pairs of hands, so he called in some favors," she said. She shifted the parcels around while Mikoto fished out her keys. "By the way," she whispered. "He requested me for the new precision strike team he's heading, now that he's officially a captain. It's a little...strange, considering I've change his diapers."

Even after the long and trying day, Mikoto had to laugh as she pushed open the door. "I don't doubt it. When he's Hokage he gets to order _me_ around, and I gave birth to him."

"So I heard," she said. "The Sandaime's not getting any younger. It's about time."

"Will you be staying for dinner?" Mikoto asked politely, hoping the young woman would say no. She was extremely fond of Yūgao but still hadn't completely recovered from the chakra exhaustion, and wanted nothing more than to eat something and collapse.

"No, this is all for you," she said, as she deposited the containers of takeout on the kitchen counter. "I'm going out with Hayate-san later."

"You're going out with Hayate-san?" Mikoto mimicked, teasing. He was her teammate Haruka's older brother and the only boy in Konoha—well, man now—who could make the pragmatic, ruthless Yūgao blush.

Right on cue, her cheeks reddened. "No...I mean...Haruka and I promised him a lot of beer. For helping move all of this. We're just friends, and it's _not_ a date," she added forcefully.

"We are? It's not?" a man said from the stairwell. He sounded confused, and rather hurt. Yūgao clapped her fingers to her lips and made a strangled gasping sound as Gekkō Hayate descended the stairs with his younger sister a few steps behind. Ninja senses could, at times, be...inconvenient.

"That didn't come out right," she murmured. "If I'd known you wanted it to be, that's...fine. Actually—better than fine."

"I would," he said, a bit stiffly considering he had an audience. "Very much."

Haruka cleared her throat. She looked like a slightly smaller and more buxom version of her brother, dressed in dark gray fatigues instead of his navy blue ones. They even had more or less the same haircut. "It's about time somebody spat that out, but can you makes puppydog eyes at him later?" she said. "Some of us are hard at work here. And I think Mikoto-sensei is deeply grateful we spent our afternoon moving furniture, but would like us all to get the hell out of her house."

"That...about sums it up," Mikoto said, wincing at Haruka's bluntness. "Thank you _very_ much for helping out with the move, and for picking up dinner, but I've had entirely too long a day to be a decent hostess tonight."

"We got it, sensei," Haruka said with a grin, and chased the new couple out of the front door while Mikoto went to find Itachi. He was sitting on Naruto's bed, methodically folding cardboard boxes and slotting them behind the headboard. Naruto had already made some headway in claiming the room as his own; there was an enormous ramen noodle advertisement tacked to the wall, as well as a very crude drawing of a pink-haired girl surrounded with hearts.

"Thank you, for taking care of all this," she said. "I thought you had a mission to prep for."

Itachi looked up at her, smiling faintly. "As it turns out...this was the mission. The Hokage can assign personnel however he likes. Even an ANBU captain to a D-Rank, if he wishes. The mission office got a good laugh out of it, at least." He collected the box cutter and scraps of packing tape and put them aside. "I didn't mind," he assured her.

The front door opened and shut, and a few moments later an enormous potted palm with a crown of blond hair appeared in the doorway. Naruto peeked around the fronds, set it down carefully next to the bed, and then collapsed face-first next to Itachi's knees with his hands pressed to his stomach. He seemed to be waiting for something.

"Are you all right?" Itachi asked finally.

"So...hungry. Can't move...another box," he panted into the blankets. "Need...everyone...to come...eat noodles with me." He raised his head up and grinned. "They taste better that way," he said, before going limp again.

"Agreed," Mikoto said, moving to the door. "But you're going to have to walk. Neither of us are going to carrying you."

"Okay!" he said, springing up again and dashing past her. "Dinner, here I come!"

There was no way she was tackling the dishes tonight, so the paper containers of takeout and disposable chopsticks were dully handed out to be fought over as necessary. "Why don't we eat outside?" she said. "It's just getting warm enough."

There were murmurs of agreement all round. Mikoto brought her food outside, and lit the citronella candles she found in the tool shed to keep the insects away. While Naruto noisily inhaled his share, his adoptive brother was staring into nothing. Sasuke had curled up against one of the smooth stones with his untouched container of food at his feet, the chopsticks clenched in his fist. Mikoto realized, with a spasm of grief, that his eyes were fixed on the spot where his father could often have been found watching the sun set.

Shinobi children came to understand death young, but he did not yet need to know the truth about how his father died. Mikoto wasn't sure she would ever have the courage to tell him. She and Itachi agreed it was best to let him assume it was some anonymous ANBU agent that had come to arrest him along with the rest of the Council, and that he had died bravely, struggling for what he thought was right. Sasuke had enough to grapple with, without knowing whose hand it was that drove the blade into his neck.

"You should eat something," she said gently. "I'm sure you've been working hard all day."

Sasuke grunted noncommittally, and didn't pick up the small box of noodles.

Naruto scooted closer to him, eyeing his food greedily. "If you're not going to eat that, I'll take it off your hands."

Sasuke glared at him and snatched it away. "Who said I wasn't?"

"Well you're _not_," Naruto replied. "So give 'em to me already!"

Sasuke's answer was to very deliberately place a huge tangle of noodles to his mouth. "Amb too," he said, his mouth full. "Thee, pig?"

"Don't call me a pig!"

Sasuke chewed and swallowed with an unseemly amount of effort. "You eat enough to be one."

Itachi glanced at her from his seat against one of the posts holding up the roof. "Are they always going to be like this?" he asked in a hushed voice.

Mikoto smiled down at the two boys. Sasuke was lifting bites to his mouth with obvious pleasure, while fending off his attacker with strategic applications of his foot to Naruto's face. The ink was barely dry on the adoption papers, and they already had the push-and-pull of brothers down as flawlessly as if they'd been born to it. "Oh, I would certainly hope so."

* * *

THE END

**Just to clarify**: Madara is dead. Toast. Deceased. Departed. No more. No one is going to Impure World Resurrect his creepy ass, either. I personally cannot STAND stories that have the same damn villain popping up again and again like some deranged whack-a-mole game. However, the sequel will not be 150,000 words of Naruto and Sasuke lovingly punching each other and eating popsicles. Sure, the future looks rosy now, but I can assure you that in, oh, six years time, things in Konoha will have gone completely to hell. Madara's death kicks off a huge amount of political instability in Kirigakure (and by 'political instability' I mean brutal civil war), of which A Certain Individual is going to take full advantage...

And because somebody asked who has their private messaging disabled: no, I am not a published author, unless you count the articles I wrote in my high school newspaper ten years ago. I am, however, absolutely tickled pink that it occurred to you to ask.


End file.
